


The Desert Glacier

by Seedcity



Series: Futureghosts [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Action & Romance, Blood and Injury, Body Horror, Character Death, Deadlock McCree, Established Relationship, Eventual McCree, F/F, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Genji Shimada is a Little Shit, Heavy Angst, M/M, Minor Original Character(s), Psychic Violence, Psychological Horror, Separation Anxiety, Sober Hanzo, Supernatural Elements, Sweet Jesse McCree
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-24
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2018-08-24 12:10:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 112,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8371861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seedcity/pseuds/Seedcity
Summary: One-year Overwatch veteran Hanzo Shimada has been assigned to defend the reinitializing of Watchpoint: Grand Mesa following the mysterious evacuation of Helix Company. He will lead his team against a strangely disoriented Talon, confront the shadows of Overwatch's past, deal with the pressures of leadership, and long for the company of his precious cowboy.Also: ghosts.





	1. Chapter 1

The last, yawning glimpses of the setting sun set Colorado on fire. The sun fulcrums just below the spiky tips of the mountains, wildly throwing a blanket of hot orange and red that threads into the already smoldering trees. The rolling hillsides conserve the last of the sun’s rays, empty valleys swallowing it hungrily. Eager to take its place, the indigo hues and purples of the night begin to close like an eyelid over the dying embers spitting over the horizon. 

Hanzo watches the frigid darkness take over as he stands on the highest part of the Watchpoint, a defunct communications tower. One hand grasping the rough metal of the antenna, the other limp at his side, he relishes the cold night licking his wearied skin. Day 43 at Watchpoint: Grand Mesa. Day 40 of the recovery project. The Watchpoint looks much better than when his team had arrived; the unused, decaying corpse of the Overwatch installation had seen much better days. From peeling sticky shells of dust and lint off of consoles and furniture to power-washing the windows free from the dirt’s clutches, Hanzo has been leading a team of what are basically security janitors since they arrived here. The work is a reprieve from the subterfuge he’s usually assigned. It’s honest and plain, refreshingly mind-numbing. But the heat and the responsibility of leadership, coupled with the pangs of heartache that surface when he thinks of his partner wanes his patience. His fingers itch; both to fight and to love. 

It gets too cold too fast on the top of the communication tower. Hanzo lingers just a few minutes longer to look at the sky, indulging in Jesse’s advice: “you ain’t never seen a night sky like the one the South has to offer.” He concedes, the sky is perforated with twinkling lights, holes in the shroud of absolute black in the absence of the moon behind a glowing cloud. 

The climb back down to ground level rewards Hanzo with the mired gaze of Torbjörn. He is unable to resist the pinprick of minor irritation that follows the engineer’s company. Hanzo finds him uncooperative, misleadingly manipulative, and, most of all, obnoxious. A word that only rests well on-- 

“The communication tower is ready to work,” Torbjörn huffs, bags under his eyes. “I put m’team down. We can make long-distance calls starting tomorrow.” 

“Gilbert and Vandergild are doing rounds,” Hanzo replies, turning down the musty hallway toward the work-in-progress quarters. 

“I’m out, then. You doing a supply run t’morrow?” 

“Yes. Give requests to Christen.” Hanzo takes his leave. 

Things are terse with his co-commander. In the debrief, Winston insisted the combination of them would defend the Watchpoint while it repopulates and also ensure that all of the mechanics are working. Torbjörn’s job, Hanzo relents, is much harder than his own. The environmental systems have been entirely shot and, naturally, there are virtually no working munitions or defense systems in place. 

Keeping watch over an isolated cluster of decaying husks is tedious and idle, but with the condition the defense system is in, Hanzo’s team is, in Winston’s eyes, an essential resource. Talon, Deadlock, and other such big-name, self-declared enemies of Overwatch have installations in the American Southwest; refurbishing Watchpoint: Grand Mesa is a loud call-to-attention. Already Hanzo has fended off a small, unnamed raiding party—fodder for his lethargic team. 

The sniper pads up to his door. The smell of unstirred dust still resonates in these halls, even after Hanzo’s insistence that the windows be kept open at night. The small bed where he has come to observe the days crawl by waits mockingly as the door slides open. Here begins another night of restless sleep. Dreams of Genji’s playful grin as he swats away fireflies on a riverbank. Haunting wraiths glowing green like his visor writhe in the background, threatening to plunge his innards toward nausea. Three times he wakes, dry-heaves over the toilet, and returns to bed. Exhaustion wins out in the end, as Hanzo lets control slip regretfully from his grasp, and grants himself the small reward of rest. 

***  
Grand Junction proper is a hot 36 miles from the Watchpoint. While being one of the least isolated bases in Overwatch, Grand Mesa is a difficult territory to observe. The flat slope descends into a ridge forming the San Juan mountain range where Deadlock and their ilk love to hide. Hanzo has zero doubt they’ve had their way with the Watchpoint many times since its death. 

The truck barrels urgently down the road. This is the second time they’ve done a supply run, and Hanzo is ready to put this job behind him. The town of Grand Junction puts an air of distaste in his mouth. The omnics that live here, in a supposed safe space, are often treated as slaves. While he holds little sympathy for them on their own, the candor with which they are abused here doesn’t rest well with him. Plus, the town smells like dog food and there is very little in the way of recreation. Supply runs for his team are an anticipated break. For Hanzo, it’s more of the same dull listlessness. 

Occasionally, he lets the ennui set in, usually after visits here. If Jesse weren’t abroad with Winston’s broad strokes of intelligence gathering, it would be the only opportunity they had to talk. That opportunity has hit the leaden wall of their opposing schedules twice now. It overtakes him, exacerbates the worms of heartache buried light in his chest. He sometimes feels as if they are about to burst forth, wriggling from his smooth body to bury into someone else’s. If only. He buries any trace of solace in the fact that he can still call Genji.

Today the truck rumbles to a stop in front of a wholesale grocery store. The Watchpoint is constantly low on food, and constantly low on funds. With the communications tower offline, this was the only time the team could use the phone and report back to Gibraltar. Now that Torbjörn has restored at least the emergency communication functions, reporting back to Gibraltar on an expensive satellite line has already occurred. Hanzo lets his team enjoy their small solace, calling their friends and families. Getting medical supplies, gathering food, et cetera et cetera. The same thing he did last time.

While his team does the heavy lifting, Hanzo skulks around town to watch out for hints of danger to the Watchpoint or any news about Overwatch in general. Grand Junction doesn’t seem to care much for the world’s larger problems, and so he’s only heard hateful muttering from some supposed Deadlock members he has no energy or reason currently to subdue.

He stops outside a lonely-looking refugee-shelter-turned-soup kitchen. Next door is an ostentatious bar and grill, whose patrons hoot and cheer at some sports broadcast on the outdoor screen. Inside, guests can pay for lap dances. Tasteful. Down the street, the truck is parked at a munitions depot, Hanzo’s team scurrying left and right to heave boxes of supplies into the back of the truck. He pauses in the mid-morning light, watching the restaurant crowd and burst with people going about their daily lives. Unaware, wholesome. Is it jealousy Hanzo feels when he scans through their delighted faces, the blush of alcohol on some of their cheeks and bellies protruding full of food? Hanzo neglects to push the matter further. 

A woman in a frilly, sky-blue tutu and long pumps with ridiculously loud makeup on skirts by him, matching pace. 

“Can I interest you in a dance?” she asks him quietly in an accent he can’t place. He frowns. 

“No, thank you, I must be going on my way.” He walks down toward the supply truck. She follows. He hears the cheerful two-part click of her heels digging into the hot sidewalk. He turns to face her, countenance oozing irritation. 

“Darling, do you have to be so standoffish?” She stretches. Hanzo admits, her form is impeccable. She has the movements of a dancer, an acrobat.

“My apologies. I am in the middle of something,” he says in a short tone. He is more than ready to be left alone, distracted by the stillness of his phone. He turns away from her, having arrived at the truck. She wriggles around him, leaning against the grill of the vehicle. 

“You’re with that Overwatch, yes? The one who’s moving back into town?” Hanzo’s eyes flit suspiciously at her. He still can’t place the accent. 

“That’s what the symbol on the truck says,” gruffs Hardy behind her. The strong-armed Latina woman is hoisting a large crate of miscellaneous metal parts into the back of the truck. Hanzo recognizes some of them as tools Torbjörn complained about lacking. He will be glad to hear the end of his nagging. 

“Well, I can see that you’re busy, so,” she tucks a card into the lapel of Hardy’s coveralls, “I’ll leave you be. But my bar is a great place for a thirsty soldier.” She departs. Hanzo eyes her surreptitiously as she flits away, scurrying back into the bar. As she slips inside, Hanzo thinks the accent might be French. 

***

“Brother!” exclaims Hanzo’s earpiece in Japanese. He clicks his tongue, instantly regretting calling Genji first. The mirthful cyborg spits greetings into his ear with a vigor impossible for Hanzo to match. 

He settles on a raspy, “Good evening.” 

Genji scoffs audibly over the line. “You can do better than that. I haven’t talked to you in two weeks.” 

“I have never been so busy, yet so bored in my life,” rumbles Hanzo in response. He ties his hair up, untangles a stray lock from his earpiece before placing it back in. “Must you nag about this?” 

“Tragic,” Genji says. Hanzo imagines him tilting his visor back in a sassy repartee. “So. Did he tell you?” The question comes out of left field, and the matter-of-fact tone his brother takes riles Hanzo even more. 

“Who? What? You should not be so opaque.”

“McCree! Did he tell you about… you know?” The eyebrow waggle can almost transcend the communication line. 

“I have no idea what you’re going on about.” There is a silence, a pause. As if Genji is steeling himself.

“The phone is working for the first time since you left.” 

“Yes.” 

“And you’re wasting your first phone call talking to me. You didn’t call him first thing. You are the _worst_.” 

Hanzo scowls. “I did not know he was at the Watchpoint. He will not even be awake at this hour.” 

Again, his brother scoffs irritably on the other line. Hanzo can tell; he is also overworked. “You think he wouldn’t rise from the grave to answer a call from you after a month? Brother, he is a lost dog here without you. It’s hilarious.” 

“Genji.” 

“Sad,” Genji corrects. “It is sad. Hilariously sad. Call him. He has news for you.” 

“Well, hello to you, too after a month,” Hanzo snaps. 

“I don’t want to talk about anything other than what McCree has to say, so if anything call back when you’re done.” Click. Despite the chagrin and the annoyance at being hung up-on, Hanzo feels a swath of warmth; Jesse misses him. 

Hanzo sits on a bench just outside the medbay, which is the one section of the Watchpoint that hasn’t been touched. With nobody but Mercy and Lúcio to lead the medical team, there’s currently no one to oversee the reconditioning of the dinky hospital. Once Torbjörn gets the defense systems online, Hanzo will return to Gibraltar; from that point, Winston says they have no choice but to “play it by ear.” Repeatedly questioning the gorilla scientist’s leadership, but keeping his incredulousness to himself, Hanzo bites back resentment toward his brother. Genji insisted the only way to redeem himself would be to work for Overwatch with him. Hanzo cannot bring himself to regret the decision wholly; it allows for more time to be spent with his younger brother. Additionally, if he hadn’t joined, he would’ve never met McCree. 

He dials the number, watching the evening rise again. The supply run to Grand Junction was a nice refresher for his team. While he allowed them to use the phone there in haughty anticipation of some delay in the communication tower restoration, he steeled himself to call when he knew there would be no interruption. Now, his heart is in his throat. It climbs higher with every uninterrupted ring. The anticipation twists in his belly like a poison. 

His chest hitches; the line goes dead. No answer. Of all the times for Genji to be incorrect in his sluicing, cheerful rants. His heart drops straight down into his stomach. His legs feel tiresomely heavy as he moves to stand. Crestfallen. He didn’t realize exactly how much he wanted—needed—to hear the tired drawl of the half-asleep gunslinger on the other line. A month without Jesse has brought Hanzo an unfamiliar ache in his sternum. A weighty reminder of the absence. Addicted to his lover’s scent, withdrawing, desperate for a fix. A somber anxiety, as well: Winston’s tendency to assign McCree solo missions for intelligence purposes ghosts bad omens into Hanzo’s brain. 

There isn’t time to ruminate further. The short-wave radio in his pocket emits a cheerful charm, followed by the discordant barking of Torbjörn. “Shimada, we gotta problem.” Then, in succession, the rest of his team. 

“Get out of the way!” 

“Don’t shoot, it’s too late!” 

As soon as the transmission cuts, Hanzo hears a loud boom, followed by the unmistakable sound of shattering glass. 

Hanzo drops to a crouch and rushes along the courtyard in the direction of the noise; the administrative complex. It was the first building they’d tackled in their renovation, and Hanzo can’t help but let anger bloom in his chest. So much progress potentially lost. 

“Torbjörn!” he hisses into the short-wave. “Status!”

Nothing. 

Storm Bow in hand, Hanzo darts to and up the wall of the dorm building, adjacent to the administrative complex. From this vantage point, he sees the source of the noise: a large supply truck has barreled through the solid gates of the Watchpoint and straight into the sheen glass wall of the conference room. 

“Shimada! Get yer team together _now_ ,” comes Torbjörn from the short-wave. He’s quiet. Hiding. 

“They _are_ together,” he reports back. Indeed: Hanzo’s team has responded instantly. He feels a swell of pride as Vandergild and Flores rush the site, guns up, in a pincer formation. They surround the truck whilst keeping their distance. 

“Carlson,” Hanzo barks. “Report.” 

“Coming in from the top, boss.” Hanzo’s eyes dart to the roof patio of the administrative complex, where the gaunt figure of Carlson dashes madly along, throwing a sonar grenade down into the wreckage. Hanzo fires a sonar arrow, too, straight at the complex’s far wall to cover twice the ground. 

“There’s no one here,” reports Vandergild. “Must’ve had the self-steer on.” 

“Then it is a distraction. Murray and Hardy, search the other end of the Watchpoint,” commands Hanzo. “Do not let anything pass.” He turns and shoots three more sonar arrows into random corners of the Watchpoint, then checks above. No signs of a sniper. 

Torbjörn rattles through the short-wave again: “I’m putting m’team out through the back-door. Cover us.” Hanzo shifts his team’s movements to comply, watching as a team of shaken engineers spills out the emergency exit of the administrative complex, flanked by Gilbert and Flores. 

“There’s something on the truck’s grill. Wait, this’s the same supply truck you took earlier, Shimada.” Hanzo stops in his parsing of the situation. Having analyzed the structure, the angle at which the truck came barreling through, Hanzo realizes Torbjörn is right. The peel-out from the parking structure is there. 

The woman. 

Of course there is no sign of her. That’s what she does. This is a duel. Just as Hanzo makes the connection, he hears the peal of her rifle through the night air. 

“HARDY IS DOWN!” bellows Murray, who is obviously running. 

“Murray, get your rifle and stay inside the dorm building. Everyone else stay out of open areas if you want to keep your head,” Hanzo barks gravely. The shot came from the slums of the old cafeteria, another place they’d just restored function to. He leaps from the dorm building to the observation deck, and then lands on the roof of the medbay. The cafeteria lies just behind—

Hanzo tucks, rolls away, his instincts kicking his legs into motion. The shot barely misses. He wheels, stands, nocks, fires. The shadow across the roof dives down toward the ground, the arrow grazing right over her head. Fuck. 

“How did they—”

“Silence,” Hanzo hisses. He dashes after the shadow, just barely witnessing the thin cord of her grappling hook latch to the observation deck he’d just come from. 

“Contact. Observation deck. Murray.” 

“Check,” comes Murray’s pitched confirmation. Another sound of shattering glass as Murray shoots through the dorm window, catching the guard rail and the wall, but missing the sniper. 

“Damn.” 

“She’s after the communications tower,” says Hanzo. Indeed, she pulleys over the observation deck and swings around, acrobatic, infuriatingly smooth, onto the underside of the comm tower. A short flash of red, and Hanzo is rolling behind a patio furniture set to dodge another shot, which shatters the plastic around him. 

“Ready,” says Torbjörn, and Hanzo watches as an orange dot sails through the air, and then erupts in a blinding light, casting out all shadow in the area. Here Hanzo gets a true look at his assailant: Widowmaker. 

“She’s not after casualty, she’s doing recon. Or she’s another distraction,” calls Murray. Hanzo remembers her comeback in front of the bar. How she stretched, feigned innocence, leaning against the truck grill--

The double-blind. Talon’s playbook, stolen from the Shimada. 

“Is everyone out of the administrative complex,” Hanzo asks, less a question, more a demand. 

Another shot rings out. She’s playing with them. 

“Almost, bringing up the rear, had t’make sure I didn’t leave—”

“Hurry. _Now._ ” Again Hanzo’s instincts call for perfect timing, as the entire earth rocks with the sound of the explosion. The administrative complex becomes a raucous fireball, sending booming shockwaves through Hanzo’s feet. He peeks around the corner to see it, then ducks down again as chunks of the wall fly off from contact with her bullet. 

“I’m pinned, boss.” Hanzo’s eyes dart to the roof of the cafeteria. The other acrobat, Carlson, lays low to the ground as a bullet cracks into the concrete near him. Shit. It’s time; there’s no other choice. He hitches his bow up, nocks an arrow, breathes outward. Focuses his eyes. 

“I need a location,” he commands. Murray is the first to come through, voice cracking. 

“She’s above me, I just can’t tell where—” Another shot, but this is enough. He wheels around, turns on a dime, and lets the arrow fly. He feels his shoulder burn as he lets the world gray out, swaths of ice-cold blue entering his vision. His blood runs frigid, freezing in its vessels. His heart stops, replaced by an ephemeral growl. 

The dragons twist into existence following the trail of the arrow, and Hanzo sees Amélie turn and drop her mouth open. She attempts to levy away, aiming her wrist cannon. Hanzo, in a cold sweat, shoots again, forcing her to crouch and roll in the opposite direction. She is too late; the dragons are on her. They bellow through the night, roaring through starvation. As Hanzo expects, her faculties are not without preparation. She drops her visor down and slams herself into the night. Hanzo watches the dragons tear into her for only a split second before she just vanishes. 

Hanzo doesn’t give himself the time to think about it. There’s no choice but to assume he’s scared her off for now. Or maybe her mission was already accomplished. He turns toward the wreckage of the administrative building, thumbing his short-wave in a small panic. 

“Torbjörn, status.” No response. “Torbjörn.” 

“Eh.” Relief. 

“Christen,” Hanzo says, rage in his voice. 

“On it.” The sole medic on the defense team confirms his en route, and that is all Hanzo has the energy for. The dragons were summoned, but not fed. It is time to rest. 

“I might’ve… lost an arm,” mumbles Torbjörn over the radio. “The prosthetic.” He groans. Hanzo belies his sympathy before climbing down to ground level.

The sight shakes him more than he feels it should. Hardy’s body, crumpled in a pool of her own blood, a clean shot through her forehead. He knows what it feels like to lose a team member. It’s not the same in the Shimada family, but this feeling is not alien to him. Yet, still, he must tear his eyes away as the nausea creeps in. The guilt, always ready to rear its head, always resting in the pit of his guts, crawls eagerly toward his throat. It stings on his tongue, and wets his eyes. 

The two teams regroup hours later at the dorm building. The only casualty is Hardy, and the only injuries are Torbjörn’s and a few banged up engineers from the original crash. The administrative complex is no more, a pile of rubble, and the supply truck is surely gone, too. Hanzo demonically curses himself inwardly for allowing this to happen. For letting that—that fiendish woman slip past his watchful eye. He recognizes, somewhere inside, that the weariness is starting to affect his vigilance. He’ll need to delegate responsibility further if he wants to maximize efficiency. A second-in-command. He looks over the remnants of his team, miserably thinking, _Hardy would’ve been my choice_. 

“She meant t’scare us,” Torbjörn concludes in a tired mumble. His arm is nothing but a dangling chunk of metal and some exposed fuses. 

“There will be followups. I will request backup from Gibraltar in the morning. She is sure to return.” Hanzo is still puzzled by the way she disappeared, avoiding the dragons altogether. The frustration sets in. He wanted them to tear her apart. He wanted to see her flesh dissolve in their hungry blue light. But more than anything, he is exhausted. His eyelids droop, his muscles feel saggy. His blood still forces pricks of frost into his skin, the tattoo scathing and prickling when he stops concentrating on something.

“I can’t fucking believe that just happened,” says a shaking Murray. She is thin, white-skinned (now even paler). Carlson and Christen have taken to dealing with the body, leaving Murray, Vandergild, and Hanzo. Murray is the newest, and it happened right in front of her. Hanzo immediately excuses her, commands her to get some rest. She will have to day off tomorrow. 

Hardy weighs heavy on his heart. He’d only known her for a few months, as she joined Overwatch with the biggest surge in the organization’s population since the recall. They got along right away—staunch, muscular, compact. Always glowering. Always prioritizing. As if he needed another death to feel responsible for. He sighs to himself quietly. 

“Boss,” says Vandergild, placing a tender arm on his shoulder. The man’s presence unavoidably pains Hanzo. He is tall and hefty, bearded, rugged and wild. If he didn’t have blonde hair, blue eyes, and a Santa Claus gut, he’d be a ghost of Jesse. He could even have heels clinking, hat-tipping in the sunlight. Flashing that wolf grin. 

Hanzo’s stomach flips. “Get some rest,” Vandergild continues, grunting. “I’m on night crew and I’ll let you know if we need you.” It occurs to Hanzo that Vandergild is more than eligible for a second-in-command. He’s fought with Hanzo before; he knows how the dragons work. He is able to understand and maneuver around their use, something the rest of the team is behind on (through no fault of their own). 

Curtly, he nods. Before he turns and exits the room, he says, “Services for Hardy tomorrow.” 

Back in his quarters, which thankfully have much more space and amenities than Gibraltar. Hanzo sets tea on a hot plate, appreciative for the room he has to stretch and flex, letting the tenseness roll off of him in waves. After a visit to the restroom and the indulgence in the tea, Hanzo blanks out. Solid, necessary, sleep. Even for all the yearning, the withdrawal from co-dependence, and the dullness, the dragons take enough out of him to force his eyes shut. 

***  
He shifts in the morning light. The soreness shoots up his back first. He coughs dry and reaches out a hand to find his phone. The screen is already on. Hanzo gulps back a wave of anticipation. 

3 MISSED CALLS: JESSE MCCREE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jesse is coming soon, you gotta earn the presence of everyone's favorite cowboy. 
> 
> These first couple chapters are going to be fairly short, but chapter 3 onwards should be a little more substantial.


	2. Chapter 2

Hanzo feels like he has to brush his teeth before he redials the phone. 

He squints in the buzzing light of the bathroom, palming the sink and licking his canines in the mirror. With a hum of dissatisfaction, Hanzo disrobes. He showers and dresses, ties his hair up in the trademark golden-bronze scarf. He wears the black _gi_ today; it has the highest thread count. He cracks his neck, and sits down on the bed. 08:15 AM. The sky is rusty with the morning glow. Overnight moisture has collected on the long-dead foliage outside his window. 

A deep breath, and he’s dialing Jesse back. It doesn’t even ring before he picks up; Jesse must’ve already had the phone in his hand. 

Hanzo is not prepared. 

“H’lo?” he crows eagerly out of the phone. Rolling in with a drawl, spurs on the edge of his voice. Like always. 

Like home.

The overwhelming stampede of relief that falls over Hanzo is breathtaking. He takes a moment to pause, gather his convictions, and breathe deep. 

“Darlin’?” comes the confused echo. Hanzo realizes he’s been quiet for almost twenty seconds. 

“Good morning,” he sputters, tongue stumbling through the words as if it were his first day speaking English again. He leans back into his bed, head-hitting-pillow. 

“Aw,” Jesse laughs into the phone, “ya miss me?” It’s there. Thousands of miles away, but it’s there. The warmth, saturating Hanzo even through the phone. 

“Yes.” There’s no one around to witness Hanzo Shimada crack a grin. “Likewise, I would imagine.” 

“Ugh, you got no idea.” A rustle brushes against the microphone; Jesse’s outside. “It’s been hell without ya, darlin’. I reckon the longest we’ve gone without each other in the past year’s about two weeks,” he whistles, “I ain’t built for this kinda distance.” 

“Nor am I. Before last night, I would’ve hoped this wouldn’t take the full six months, but…” 

“What happened last night?” 

Hanzo hesitates. Jesse knows. He growls into the line. 

“Hanzo, what happened?” 

“The Widowmaker, she’s… around. And she made it very clearly known last night.” Grief snakes its way into his chest: he hadn’t quite brought Hardy up to himself today. 

“Fuckin’ Talon is there? In Grand Junction? Fuckin’ _Talon,_ fuckin’ Widowmaker. Hanzo—”

“There is no need to worry,” Hanzo reassures soothingly, his voice dropping an octave. “We have it under control.” 

“The Hell.” Hanzo can hear him balk through the phone. Fondness breezes through him. “Well, I s’pose it can’t be helped, I got news for ya anyhow.” 

“Ah,” Hanzo replies, “Genji won’t talk to me until I hear this.”

McCree barks a short laugh on the other end. “Well, I got back from Trinidad y Tobago ‘bout three days ago. Soon as I touched ground I went ‘n found Winston. Told ‘im it makes about as much sense as tits on a bull that I’m not out there with ya. I’m the expert with those parts. An expert with _your_ parts-” He pauses to revel in Hanzo’s light groan, “-and, long story short, he agreed!” 

Hanzo nearly drops his phone. He feels his chest cave in. His heart becomes a supermassive black hole, swallowing all and any life in the universe, creating a chasm of chaotic panic in Hanzo’s antimatter brain—

“I’ll be there next Sunday, sweetheart. So. Yeah.” He coughs, anxiously awaiting Hanzo’s response. 

“I am looking forward to it.” 

“That all you got?” Jesse pleads, disappointment thick in his rich voice. 

Hanzo attempts to unbury a memory: “I am… happy as a fat flea on a hound.” 

There is a resounding silence in the line. Hanzo’s pulse flutters in his wrists.

“Jesus titty-fucking Christ I love you, Hanzo.” 

“You are so lewd,” Hanzo breathes affectionately into the microphone. 

A brazen leap of irritation pushes him out of his reverie when an urgent knock echoes through his room. “I love you, as well, Jesse. I have to go. Message me, if you feel inclined.” 

“Bye, sweetheart. Call again soon. I’m idle ‘till I come to see your gorgeous face.” The line goes quiet. Longing breaches Hanzo’s bones as he irritably goes to the door and yanks it open. 

It’s Gilbert. The ex-marine. The dark-skinned man stands stiff in the still-dismal hallway, strong jaw locked in a grievous pout.

“Sir, everyone is gathering at the administrative building, per Torbjörn.” 

“I will be there in ten,” rumbles Hanzo imperially. He shuts the door on Gilbert, gears up. Storm Bow and quiver. Short-wave. Phone. Earpiece. Armor plates. He rechecks his appearance—he is obviously swallowed in his work. His face is still blotchy despite the shower, his beard is less trimmed than he’s ever kept it, and his eyes are slightly bloodshot. He remembers looking this bad before as the melancholia sets in. The taste of alcohol reminiscent on his lips, his stomach growls for sake. It is bittersweet. Glad to be reunited with his lover, and yet unable to fully bask. Missing the taste of proper alcohol, missing none of the addiction. He scowls, shuts the door to the bathroom, and departs into the morning. 

It is already hellish outside. June glares down from the sun, baking Hanzo alive in his black clothing. His exposed arm prickles in the sunlight, and he can feel it start to burn as they stand outside the wreckage of the administrative building, all solemn bodies in a row, missing a friend whose corpse has already been shipped off. 

Torbjörn is wearing what must be a spare arm, as it groans slightly from disuse and has a considerably smaller claw appendage. It also doesn’t appear to fulfill nearly the amount of mechanical properties his proper one had. 

He catches Hanzo staring at it, and waves it miserably. “My first one. Only other piece I brought.” 

Night team cleared away the more dangerous aspects of the wreckage already. The carcass of the truck, a twisted exoskeleton left behind by the explosion, sits crumbling into the concrete ruin of the building’s wall. Hanzo moves to stand next to Torbjörn. The last time they had addressed the entire staff of the Watchpoint like this was the first day on the job. Now, over a month later, they’re already standing in a ruined ghost of their hard work. It is a discouraging sight, to be sure. To top it off, Hanzo is beginning to feel his age on this position. His shoulder locks in rotation, and his knees are stiff from lack of stretching. 

“I think we all know from last time that neither of the two of us ‘re any good at this speech crap,” Torbjörn muses loudly. Hanzo eyes his team with a subtle guilt—it’s shown in their response time and methodology that he’s trained and organized them well, but he struggles with pep talks and the like. 

He nearly shudders, realizing: Jesse can cover that. 

“But, well, ev’ryone gets the gist o’ what happened, and now we’re in scramble mode. Already shot our friends at Gibraltar a message.” He nods at Hanzo. One or both of them will be receiving communications later in the day. 

Hanzo continues the brief. “At around 20 hours yesterday, we incurred a massive facility breach. We know it was Widowmaker, and we know it was Talon. She approached us in-disguise in Grand Junction and rigged our truck with an explosive device that also hijacked the engine.” 

“Pff. Childish pranks,” Torbjörn mumbles under his breath. 

Hanzo charges on. “We have also lost a staff member.” An inhale through the nostrils, tongue pressed to the roof of his mouth, then a steady exhale carry Hanzo through. “Estrella Hardy’s presence will be sorely missed. Take the necessary time to mourn, but remember: losing soldiers is part of the game. We must continue to take action. I am redoubling our defensive efforts. She will surely return.” 

“Picking up the pace as well, team. We’re readjusting th’ priorities. Defenses come first. Alpha, Beta, I want ye on turrets. Chi, with me on alarms.” Torbjörn points to the various subgroups of his much larger, more visibly afraid team. “We need better lines of sight and better monitoring by th’ end of the day. She could be up t’ something at any time.” 

Torbjörn’s last statement shudders Hanzo up and down. A haunting truism. 

***

Widowmaker’s attack has left a panicked restlessness over the Watchpoint; the engineering team is eager to thrust themselves into the work, the defensive team uneasily shuffles on their feet. Even after a night’s sleep, the adrenaline hasn’t worn off. Hanzo knows. They’re still in shock. It will be difficult to spur them into action. He walks up close to his team, sorts his eyes through their faces. He exhales through his nostrils. 

“We will honor our comrade,” he says in a low, intimate voice, “when we are sure the Watchpoint is safe. Right now, it is time for work. We set this,” he gestures in the air; the pocket of grief encapsulating the team, “aside. For now.” 

To his small surprise, the team all nod, practically in unison. “We’re with you.” 

A hesitant smile creaks across Hanzo’s face. “Good.” 

The day slips away in a flaccid blur of vague anxiety. The reality of Widowmaker’s arrival here, and what it bodes for the Watchpoint, latches onto the foreground of his thoughts. Talon wasn’t expected to react so quickly, so violently. Overwatch hadn’t had any time to prepare. He swallows a tumultuous sting of regret and guilt, propelling him into action. It refuses to let him slow down, examine the events, process them. Parse their details. Recreate their designs. Figure out how to proceed. Today, Watchpoint: Grand Mesa is reactionary. Stalwart, but bleary. Damaged. In some ways, broken. Every time he is forced to stride past the wreckage, it returns. For most of the day, and deep into the next, he reluctantly puts his keenness for Jesse’s arrival aside as well. He texts him a few times, but the conversation is hard to maintain. 

He threads his team throughout the buildings of the complex over the weekend: medbay, dorms, observation deck, (formerly) administrative, laboratory, communications tower, storage, mess hall and cafeteria, silo, munitions storage, armory, and, finally, defensive array. They map Widowmaker’s movements: how she took advantage of the communications tower to augment her mobility. Which points she had to leave quickly, and at which she could linger. Hanzo also pens in potential spots to place turrets: once cleared for the budget, Torbjörn would be eager to build them. 

Murray approaches Hanzo on the observation deck at some point between the patrols, planning conferences, structural repair shifts, and cleaning crew for those too weak-stomached from shock to do anything else. Her freckle-peppered face has regained some of its usual subtle coloring. 

“Hardy uh, had this. In her pocket.” She presents a white, paper rectangle to Hanzo, who perks from his leaning position on the observation deck railing. “Probably got it in Grand Junction.”

It’s the card Widowmaker gave her. Hanzo plucks it from her outstretched fingers and scrutinizes it. 

MADAME JANSSENS’ ‘ORIGINAL’  
BAR – GRILL – SHOWROOM  
303-866-4848

The font is a floral, reflective pink. There is a latticed mandala design around the edges of the card in a matte red. Hanzo furrows his brow—this is the antithesis of Widowmaker’s aesthetic. 

He pockets it, and nods at Murray. “Thank you.” He tilts his head curiously at her. “When did you have access to her things?” 

Murray freezes up. “I um, we um, th-that is, we… switched tactical jackets, accidentally and…” 

“You are about as convincing as Torbjörn’s spare arm.” Hanzo teases. Murray flusters, blushes. She seizes up around her shoulders, and pouts into the collar of her—Hardy’s—tactical jacket. The vigilant sniper sees the salt build up at the corner of her eyes. He sees the sniffle building up in her nose. 

“When I have lost someone special to me in the past,” Hanzo continues quietly, suddenly more restrained again. “I have found it helpful to take my training twice as seriously. You will be on target practice at the makeshift range tomorrow. I will take your patrol.”

A nonplussed, mousy face blinks through Hanzo. “Th-thank you, boss.” 

Hanzo waves her off with a stiff jerk of the wrist. “I promised services. Set up a place to pay respects. We can stop there as we come by idle moments.” 

Murray gives her confirmation and descends down the ladder. Hanzo pulls out his phone. No new texts. He glances out over the vista of Grand Mesa. Not quite enchanted, but incensed by the way the hillsides sweep together, dusted in low foliage in some places and dominated by high trees in others. Swollen, unexpressed excitement permeates Hanzo’s skin. Jesse will be glad to see it growing on him. 

***

Hanzo and Torbjörn have been meeting in the research labs, where Grand Mesa performed a decent amount of Overwatch’s R&D. The facility was arguably state-of-the-art in its time. As Hanzo enters the robotics lab now, it has been mercifully cleaned, but remains otherwise barren. New equipment will have to be ordered. Torbjörn said that, before the attack, they were almost ready to present a budget and begin hiring construction and design crews. 

Most likely rooted through several times by passing Deadlock gaggles and anonymous trespassers, the stations are all empty. Desks have been cleaned of their materials. File folders containing mostly clerical nonsense have been scattered over abandoned office floors. 

“Gate’s fixed.” Torbjörn is leaning on the back legs of a small wire chair, stocky legs crossed over a low rolling toolbox. He flicks his spare prosthetic with his index finger, sounding a metallic ping. He has his assistant, a stocky, native girl with large, square glasses and an off-white lab coat, standing passively next to him. Hanzo has trouble recalling her name. Clara? Clarissa? He chastises himself: he should’ve brought Vandergild. 

“You’ve met m’ right hand, Chelsea, right?” says Torbjörn. 

“I believe so. It is a pleasure, all the same,” replies Hanzo, inclining his head politely in her direction. 

Chelsea smiles sheepishly. “To you as well, Mr. Shimada.” 

“All right, all right. Let’s get this done, eh?” Torbjörn growls, thumping the remote in his hands. The nearby console monitor blips to life, revealing a glowing blue call screen. 

Winston picks up after the third ring. The screen shifts black, then the video feed connects. The scientist adjusts his glasses. He looks tired. The leadership position has taken a lot out of him, even in a year. His lips sag around his big teeth, and his eyes, usually yellow and brilliantly piercing, have taken on a dull and sleepless quality. He shuffles papers, grunts, and makes eye contact with the camera. 

“Hey, guys,” he grumbles. “Sorry for scheduling this so late. Well, I guess it’s actually still kinda early there.” He gives a corrective huff. “Things have been… wild.”

Hanzo folds his arms in front of him. “I assume you received the docket.” 

“Yeah. Yeah, I did. It’s… really strange.” 

“What makes ye’ say that?” Torbjörn asks, yawning. 

“Well, Widowmaker was last reported in Numbani. Talon has media coverage there ever since they attempted to steal the Doomfist. And, apart from the actual attack Lena and I were involved in, she was sighted there just three days ago.” The gorilla partially dodges off camera, scratches his ear. There’s a slurp of water over the speakers. 

“Why travel all the way here, where Talon has barely any presence, so quickly?”

“’Cuz she’s still a little brat inside,” Torbjörn mutters.

“The only possible reason I would imagine is they caught word of our project, which isn’t surprising. The last thing Talon needs is for our influence to grow while theirs shrinks. Uh, obviously. So I’m sending both of your teams a few extra recruits.” Winston leans back in his chair. 

“What we need,” Torbjörn counters, taking a swig from his canteen, “is a higher budget. Got a whole chunk’a the Watchpoint to rebuild! Chelsea, show ‘em.” 

Chelsea produces a small projector out of her coat pocket and places it on a nearby workstation. It beeps to life, producing a large 3-D map of the facility. 

“So,” Chelsea begins, hesitant. Shy. “We lost the administrative complex.” She points to a flat section of the hologram, up toward the front of the compound. “That will need to be entirely rebuilt. There are structural weaknesses in the walls here, here, and here. These buildings have mold infestations,” she indicates the mess hall and the medbay, “and the medbay doors are sealed—not even the highest security protocols will allow us to get in. We might need to knock out the wall anyway. There are signs of rot and rust.” She speaks with a slow squeak, as if to ruminate on the words as she passes them along. 

“I’m trying to acquire a head for your medical team, by the way,” interjects Winston. 

Torbjörn snorts. “Won’t do us much good if we don’t even have access to the hospital.” 

“Actually,” Hanzo exploits the opportunity, “I propose we figure out what Widowmaker’s goal is before we decide what to prioritize. If we put effort into anything else, it could end up another ‘administrative complex’.” 

“Eh,” Torbjörn puffs.

“If we know her plan, we can maneuver around it. I want to know more about her. I would have you explain your earlier comment, for example,” insists Hanzo. 

“Ehhh,” Torbjörn repeats. 

“Do you have a rebuttal, or a better idea, as opposed to your thoughtless grunting?” 

“Made m’case.” 

“Guys,” comes Winston’s low scrape. Chelsea stirs in her boots uncomfortably. “The point here is, Watchpoint: Grand Mesa is now on total lockdown. I’m gonna schedule your reinforcements’ airdrop to include extra supplies.”

Hanzo remembers the first day on the Watchpoint; four hours of stacking banker’s boxes of data drives and file folders in the lobby of the administrative complex. All gone. 

“What about—” 

Winston inclines his head, gently levels his fist on the desk in front of him. “Sorry. This needs to be brief. I’m working on some really big stuff lately—Jesse will fill you in.” 

Hanzo straightens. 

Torbjörn lolls his head back, eye tiredly fixed on the ceiling. His idle hand lazily threads through his whiskers. “Oh, we’re going down _that_ road.” 

Winston tilts his head quizzically. “You didn’t know he was joining the project?” 

“Are you referring to the ‘road’-”Hanzo throws his chin up in vindictive sarcasm, “-where we enlist the agent that is the most familiar with this region in all of the organization?” 

“I’m referring to the _road_ where yer all distracted playing house with a cowboy,” shoots Torbjörn. “Nobody learned from Gabe ‘n Jack? Ye can’t do that here. It doesn’t work for anybody!” Agitated, he weaves his prosthetic through the air, opposite hand balled into a fist.

“Torb!” Winston slips out a rough, menacing grunt. “Drop it.” 

But Hanzo’s face is twisted in revolted offense. “Are you actually insinuating—”

“Both of you,” Winston utters again, this time with a sharp edge. An upward groan. 

“Not insinuating anything. Those ‘re the facts, kid.” 

“Stop.” A stiff, high creak crackles out of the console as Winston digs his fist loudly into his metallic desk, denting it deeply enough to collapse its angled legs. It jerks to the side and downwards, spilling a trail of paperwork onto the floor. 

Hanzo and Torbjörn snap their heads back toward the monitor in unison, eyes widened. 

“Listen, I need to sleep.” Winston takes off his glasses, pinches his temples with his massive fingers. He blows out a hot breath from his sloped, tired mouth, retracting. “Lay low. Stay indoors when you’re not patrolling. Skip your next supply run. That’s all I have to say right now.” The screen flashes, then blackens. Chelsea quietly puts the hologram away.

“I’ll be,” Torbjörn mutters in amusement, blinking after the fading monitor image. “That pup’s starting ta sound more like Jack every day. Job does that to everyone, I suppose.” 

The archer recoils, disgusted. As if nothing had happened? With stone, sub-zero eyes on Torbjörn as the engineer jerks his head at Chelsea, Hanzo marches out into the lowering temperature of the evening. The door slams shut before Torbjörn eases out to look back at him. 

The heat of the day finally gives way to an evening breeze as Hanzo makes his way to check up on patrols. In his icy fury, he clings to his phone as a totem. Scrolling through his texts with Jesse forces his jaw out of a frown with every “sugar,” or “sweet pea.” 

He doesn’t give a second thought to the idea of insinuating he and Jesse shared the same destiny as those husks of bitter memory—the thought turns his tongue to ash. 

***

10:00 PM. Hanzo calls for a meeting with Flores, Vandergild, and Christen while the others are on night patrol. He gathers them in the defensive array building. A single, wide room with numerous partitions and security equipment (all currently defunct until the entire Watchpoint is rewired), Hanzo places both hands flat on the table in front of a spattering of dusty, old monitors. 

“I am not content with mildly waiting for a secondary attack,” Hanzo says after a beat. His conviction is solid: Widowmaker poses a threat that cannot merely be defended against. She must be rooted out, isolated, and removed from the equation. He is sure Jesse will coincide. 

“I would typically agree,” murmurs Flores, his high voice raspy from smoke. The coarse, yet amiable demolitions expert wafts a cigarette back and forth, nonchalant between two fingers. Hesitant. “But…” 

“We’re on lockdown, though,” says Christen. “And I don’t know about you guys, but as literally the _only_ doctor on this base, I can’t recommend putting ourselves into a situation with potentially more injury.” 

“Then it is a good thing I am not asking for your recommendation,” says Hanzo, restoring focus with a flat wave of his hand. He produces Widowmaker’s business card, lays it flat on the table. Christen’s two gloved fingers spin it around towards him. 

“What’s this?” 

“This is the business card of Widowmaker’s alias. She slipped it into Hardy’s pocket in Grand Junction.” Hanzo levels his gaze past his subordinates. The vindictive fury settled deep threatens to gush from between his teeth. 

“This means she marked her,” Vandergild realizes aloud. Hanzo nods curtly in his direction. Right on target. Widowmaker’s habit for spectacle remains the only exploitative avenue for Hanzo. He thinks of her gaudy insignia, slapped or sprayed onto all of her crime scenes. A calling card. A mask. 

“Yes. I should have seen it coming.”

“Nah, boss.” Vandergild sweeps a wide hand through his hair. “We were all there. Other than the makeup, she didn’t seem the least bit conspicuous.” He strokes his beard, repeats: “Other than the makeup.”

“That’s like a _thing_ these days though,” says Christen. “Did you see—”

Hanzo taps the card. “I am going to this bar.” 

Christen and Flores retract into silence, trying to find something in Hanzo’s stern gaze. He is tired, and he knows he looks it. His team exchanges solemn glances. “Boss…”

“I am not suggesting we mount an offensive. We are blind to the situation as it stands now. I find that unacceptable. We need to know about her. What she is doing here and why.” 

“That all stands, boss, but… isn’t this an obvious trap?” Christen pulls nervously on the shoulder of his coveralls. 

“Yes, and she knows we know that,” Vandergild says finally.

“So then she’ll be expecting us,” reasons Flores.

“A better reason to drop all pretense and walk right in.” Hanzo stands up straight, arms folded behind his back. Chin up with finality. “Public disputes are not her style. She will handle this with words, or she will not be there at all.”

“And if she isn’t there?” 

“Someone is there who knows something, otherwise this would not constitute a trap. I will assess when the time comes but… either we extract them, or we extract the information.” The team fumbles with their clothing or, in Flores’ case, his phone. A habit that has irritated Hanzo about him since the day he joined. A stuttered silence infects the room. The weariness slopes on their shoulders like heavy sheets of brick. They pause, reconstitute their thoughts. Hesitantly, they indicate their acquiescence. 

“Okay,” Vandergild says encouragingly, folding his arms and extending his lower lip in a contemplative pout. “So how we gonna do this on a lockdown?” 

***

Hanzo exits the defensive array center at around 11:00 PM. He glances upwards, and then down the lane to the Watchpoint’s supply gate. Carlson’s tall, slender silhouette splashes against a motif of moon-bathed rock. His rifle slopes across his thin back, idle. 

Murray passes in front of him, weaving between the mess hall and the medbay. The intersection where Hardy died. Is she retaking those steps? Hanzo watches her further, slipping around a corner to check her path. Indeed; she is retracing the route she and Hardy took during Widowmaker’s attack. She is timid, a humble hunch in the eerie light. Hardy’s tactical jacket (two sizes too big, now that Hanzo sees it from behind) is tugged tight around her. The cool night of the desert flits within her hair, fraying it out at the edges. He rolls his shoulder, considers reaching out—declines. He is eager for bed. 

He checks the clock in the courtyard outside the dorms. 11:22. It’ll be about 7 AM in Gibraltar. He kens that Jesse won’t be awake, huffs a disappointed sigh, and folds his arms into his sleeves. 

Hanzo takes a second here in the cold to breathe deep. To appreciate the clean night air caressing the muscles in his sore back. Tilting his head backward, craning into the hue of the temperature, cold eyes fixed on the silvery moon, he stretches. 

His hands reach a crescendo over his head when he sees it. The black shape- an amorphous sting in the indigo moonlight. One hand flies to his tactical knife, the other tensed into a fist. Hanzo’s eyes pierce the darkness, and he splits low, tense, ready to jump. 

There it is: in front of the medical building, levitating just off the ground and twitching under the dismal yellow lamps. Pitch-black strands of dark ooze protrude in all directions, flake off, and fade away into the cold. 

As soon as Hanzo locks eyes on it, it coalesces. Forms the silhouette of a human. His breath stalls in his throat, heart pounding numbly in his ribcage. 

Is this… fear? 

It’s not just the adrenaline of war. It’s an unfounded, irrational fear that settles rigid inside Hanzo. 

He opens his lips, and the silhouette brightens. 

It suddenly defines itself. Shapes and dull colors solidify from the oozing shadow. Hanzo resists the urge to rub his eyes in a banal, stupefied shock. 

In one instant, it is ethereal—a hovering blob. The next, a slender, dark-skinned man in his late thirties stands ragged and heavy in front of the medbay doors. Round, thick glasses balance tentatively on his malnourished face. He faces the locked, rusted façade of the building with eyes stuck pinned to the ground, unblinking. Face haggard, tired, drawn. Saggy. His shoulders slump. He does not move, statuesque. 

“Who are you,” Hanzo demands, fingers itching. His foot slides ever-so-subtly along the concrete. He is ready to move, except a rock-solid sheet of terror freezes him in place. 

The man’s eyes are glazed over. There are only a few seconds to notice it: something horridly wrong with the way his slackened face droops toward the ground. Something stirring, struggling, screaming underneath. 

He takes a weak, labored step forward. And another. 

Hanzo reaches his hand out as if he were unaware of the distance between them, feet held stonelike to the ground. 

The man makes another step, forward into the door-- 

“Halt!” 

\--And right through it. 

He leaves a wisp of black webbing that leafs through the air before dissolving into nothing. 

Hanzo stands in the courtyard, the chilliness hungrily gnawing at his bones now. It invades the warmest reaches of his guts. His hand is still out in front of him, in a clutching motion. Awe mingled with paralytic fear strangles his nervous system. A short gust of wind flaps through his clothing, momentarily lifting his hair. He does not hear the same wind echo and stretch through the breezeways of the Watchpoint, stirring dead leaves and dust like debris from a storm. 

The electric hum of the outdoor lightning is the only sound that reaches his ears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm putting this chapter out a little earlier than I expect mostly because I've pushed some stuff onto the next. Expect a bigger break for Chapter 3 since we'll start getting into the meat of the story. It will also probably be substantially longer; a lot is about to happen. 
> 
> I updated the summary and the work notes to exclude my tentative publishing schedule; I realize the amount of free time I have to work on this is not consistent. As an English major in honors, I'm fricken ALWAYS writing something.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Small content warning- incredibly vague drug references.

It takes an additional three days to draft and plan the bar investigation, leaving only four days until Jesse’s arrival. The anticipation seizes up on Hanzo when he least expects it: in the defensive array while he’s speaking, during patrols, practice, or exercise. It even ambushes him in idle moments, sitting on the observation deck or the communication tower cradling a cup of tea. The moments of uncharacteristic impatience leave Hanzo’s head spinning. By Wednesday he has grown tired of sleeping, planning, waiting. Expecting also, with heavy apprehension, another attack. 

Hanzo’s face becomes slick with dread at the thought of the apparition. It chatters the archer’s teeth at night when the freshly prickling memory resurfaces against his will, flashing in front of his eyes like a neon highway sign. The vague mix of anxiety on that first night after seeing it, the cold in his chest, they pile on and slow him down on the job, which cyclically frustrates him and prevents him from relaxing. 

He dials Jesse Wednesday morning first thing. It’s been a slightly rainy week; monsoon season is starting early this year in the Southwest. Pitched with a dull gray, Hanzo’s eyes scan his spartan room, lidded discontent. Feeling cold, consciously self-antagonizing, he picks up the phone and sighs with disapproval when greeted with a half-awake moan. 

“Are you just waking now?” 

A muffled scratching crackles by in response. “Yup.” 

“Hm. Am I to expect this laziness on the job?” Hanzo asks over a smirk. 

“You askin’ if we’re gonna spend the whole time in bed?”

“Save your breath, ranch hand.” Hanzo’s jab is countered with a sleepy snicker. 

He imagines reaching an arm out between thick sheets to wrap around Jesse’s abdomen, pulling in close, closed mouth set in against the sharpshooter’s flesh, labored but soft. He swallows loudly, jaw set in a high frown. 

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” Jesse mumbles. Hanzo’s hand slackens against the phone. He forgets that even over the distance, his partner is stunningly—misleadingly—perceptive. 

“A handful of days ago I saw a… vision, outside.” Hanzo struggles for the right word. “Here, on the Watchpoint.” 

He grits out in full detail the encounter; how the shape dripped low to the ground, sharpening suddenly when observed. The cadence of the man’s shuffle, and the paralyzing presence underneath his balmy skin. How, even though Hanzo couldn’t process what he was seeing, it wasn’t the appearance of the man that froze him in place. It was the awful, weighty, suffocating _silence_ to him. Until he vanished, Hanzo felt he might’ve gone deaf. It disoriented him, stuck him there in place as if he were fastened by chains. 

Jesse whistles. “Looks like you saw a ghost, honey.” Matter-of-fact; a diagnosis Hanzo didn’t ask for. He snorts. 

“Be serious.” 

“What? You don’t believe in ‘em?” Jesse sounded genuinely puzzled. 

“I am not a child, so no, I do not believe in _ghosts_.”

After a beat, the gunslinger deadpans, “Careful with your nose that high in the air, darlin’. You’re like to drown in a rainstorm.” 

“Jesse, I am not kidding, I—”

“Neither am I,” Jesse exclaims. He stretches; he’s getting out of bed now. “Hanzo, you can spawn big, blue spirit dragons out of thin air, an’ you wanna talk about not believin’ in ghosts? Come on now, sweetheart.” 

“That is different, and if you will let me finish, I can explain why,” Hanzo snips, dry.

“Yeah, okay,” Jesse says, an airy incredulity in his voice. There’s a chiding, metallic chatter in the distance, somewhere behind Jesse. “Uh, hang on. Genji wants to talk to ya.” Before Hanzo can protest, there’s a shuffle. The cyborg clears his throat. 

“Brother.” 

“Genji, I was in the middle of a conversation,” he chastises in Japanese. 

“Remember Hei? The Chinese immigrant that worked for the family? Crashed my tenth birthday party?”

“Yes,” Hanzo replies tiredly, giving into Genji’s spontaneous interruption, memories pointing him in the general direction. A stoic figure from Hanzo’s past—the silent bodyguard Hei, who died in a shootout with rival clanmembers. “What about him?”

“I used to see his ghost all the time.” 

“What are you—have you been eavesdropping?” Hanzo fumes. 

“I know, you hate that. You hate a lot of things, brother.” Genji hangs off the last word, a begrudging omission. Hanzo knows what he would’ve said had he not developed some semblance of a filter. “But anyway, as I was saying—”

“No, Genji, you are not taking this any further. Put Jesse back on the phone.” 

Genji is silent for a moment. “He is outside smoking.” 

“Then go outside,” Hanzo hangs his head in loose aggravation, “and hand him the phone.” 

“It’s too cold. Listen—”

“It is the middle of June! Can you even feel the cold?” The iron in his voice indicates he is reaching the end of his rope. 

“Not really. The one thing I don’t miss. Other than Suzuki’s cooking. Eugh. But listen to me: I have real information for you.” 

Hanzo rolls his eyes, groans with exaggerated volume. “What.” 

“You did see a ghost.” 

“I am hanging up now, Genji. You will tell Jesse to text message me.”

“No!” Genji barks, haughty and impatient. “Stop making things difficult! That Watchpoint is haunted. After Overwatch disbanded, Helix took over the property. You know Helix?” He leans low into the phone, conspiratorial. “’76’ stole his rifle from them?” 

“Where are you going with this.” 

“Sh,” Genji puffs. “They didn’t even install themselves at Grand Mesa for a year. They cleared out after the first three months, citing that the ‘facility is incompatible with their operations.’ Who does that? They reneged on their buyout and the property was returned to the UN. 

“How and why are you relating these statements?”

“Look, Winston was going to have McCree give all of this stuff to you. He’s been compiling some information on the Watchpoint ever since we heard about the Widowmaker attack. He thinks there is a reason Talon is moving in now _after_ Overwatch’s reinstatement. I have it all in a file I’m trying to send. If this lousy terminal will respond.” There’s a dissatisfied sigh, presumably in response to the lousy terminal not responding. 

“Is it turned on?” 

Another beat. Seconds tick by. 

“Oh.” 

Hanzo lets out a reluctant, teasing chortle. “You are terrible with technology, despite being made of it.” 

His little brother ignores him. “So why leave all in a rush like that? Fareeha used to work for them, and she says everyone at Helix got scared. Said they saw ghosts, brother, and a few of them went crazy!” Genji hangs on the line for Hanzo’s response. He clears his throat when he doesn’t get one right away. 

“Are you finished?”

“Huh?” 

Hanzo scowls. “If you are done over-indulging in a fairy tale, I’d like to speak with Jesse.” 

“Fine, don’t believe me. I swear, you are the most difficult person in the solar system. I will put your boyfriend back on the line, but promise me you’ll read the stuff.” 

“Genji…” 

“Promise,” Genji says with a flair he could’ve only sponged from his comrades at Gibraltar. 

“I promise.” Flat. 

He simmers; the wound Genji almost opened with his audacious soliloquy threatens to spill forward with a necrotic ache. He disassembles it, pushes it away. Locks it up. As the Gibraltar sea breeze echoes into the phone while Genji carries it outside, Hanzo cannot resist completing the thought. 

_You hate a lot of things, brother. Yourself most of all._

***

Hanzo has arranged for a ride service to send three cars to a gas station about a quarter of the way to Grand Junction. Step One of the plan: getting there. Since taking an Overwatch supply truck would be too ostentatious, and there isn’t currently another working vehicle on site, not to mention the lockdown, Hanzo’s three-man team must hike to the waystation and meet the cabs there.

They gather at 9:30 AM. Murray on one side and Flores on the other, Hanzo peers out between the blunt, metal ridges of the supply entrance gate. Down a patchy dirt road and around a corner of rocky sandpits, there’s a trail that leads down to the highway. They wear casual clothing. Murray is the only one that needs to be fast; she’s wearing a full sprinter wash from head to toe; shoes, Lycra, loose tank. 

Hanzo has left Vandergild in charge of the defense team, essentially instituting him as a second-in-command. The others are eager to follow him; he has proved himself capable as a leader during moments where Hanzo is effectively unreachable. Still, Hanzo is nervous to leave even for the nine hours he’s scraped out to effectively complete the mission. He eyes the portly, blond giant eyeing a map with a few stragglers from night crew. They are exhausted, but intent on hearing Vandergild’s soliloquy. A good sign. 

Under the pillowy sky, light dull and heat low, they depart. Hanzo reviews snippets of the plans with them, broad-brushing, letting them remake the finer connections themselves. 

“Be straightforward. Simple. Small strokes. Remember the call-signs. We will not have wires.” A mantra, a totem to which Hanzo’s subordinates can cling. This is not what they intended to do here. Espionage is not in their training. But Hanzo chose wisely; Murray is slippery, subtle, and fast. Flores is intimidating in appearance but disarmingly alluring in demeanor, and Hanzo is cold, commanding, leery—a perfect three-man team. Easily perceived as mice walking into a trap, they will coordinate as Hanzo sees fit. He has rigged a plan that can turn on a dime, confident that even surprises can be accounted for. 

They skirt the highway within the high, dense foliage that litters the Rockies. The monochromatic sky casts a forlorn imprint over the tops of the trees, leaving very little light underneath their canopy at places. A summer mountain wind breathes hot on their backs as they sweat through the climb across scraggly boulder patterns and dodge across small streams. Hanzo thinks of Jesse in these moments, after Overwatch’s fall. Doing much the same thing, crossing canyons, one footprint after the last, except without specific goals. He wonders if Jesse had to readjust to the transient life, or if it comes naturally to the wild man. Through this, he sees a little bit of Jesse in the surroundings. It’s not exactly the desert, nor the South Hanzo has imagined, but he knows Jesse has been here before. Perhaps he’s made this exact trek. Perhaps he placed the soggy, malformed tree trump that serves as a bridge across a particularly wide body of water. The thought forces yearning into Hanzo’s throat. 

The trek altogether takes about two hours. Hanzo’s are the only breaths run a little ragged from the hike. The lump of age that stings in the back of his throat disheartens him. He will turn forty soon. The realization peels across his lips with a soft wince. 

The three nondescript cars hover just off to the side of the gas station as Hanzo’s team approaches from behind the rugged, shanty convenience store. They approach through the store as if they had been waiting inside, slip into their respective cars, and catch their breaths on the half-hour ride to Grand Junction. 

Hanzo watches the sky darken, billowing in thick and bursting with moisture. His driver reads the obvious desire for silence in his face. He prepares himself, breathing thin and timed, for the entrance act. The sniper has wholly ditched the idea of trying to enter incognito. Overwatch has been highly auspicious in Grand Junction since the Watchpoint started back up and there’s virtually no chance anyone in Hanzo’s team could slip by undetected. Clearly, the enemy meant for them to go there. Hanzo will provide them a chance, he thinks as rain begins to collect on the windshield, a taste—just to rip it back from them, along with their tongues. 

***

The cars drop them off at three separate locations in the generalized area of the bar: Hanzo’s down two blocks south, Flores’ just around the corner, and Murray’s right in front. Hanzo exits his first, starts making his way down the street. It is sprinkling now—the road is reflective with moisture, droplets dappling across the shoulders of Hanzo’s sweater. He keeps his hands, left one up to a wristwatch, buried in his pockets as he approaches. 

Flores exits next, rounds the corner, and waits for Hanzo at the entrance to the bar. Hanzo sees the doorman welcome him in—he refuses, a flat wave of his palm. Nods his head toward Hanzo. The doorman follows his gaze, sees Hanzo, and gives a chin jerk of understanding. 

Meanwhile after circling around the block behind the bar, Murray finally exits her cab, takes a look around. She considers her options, and then sits in the patio of a small café a few spaces down and across the street. 

She is brightly dressed and the only patron sitting outside on a rainy day. Inwardly, the captain spits a cruel, anticipatory grin. Perfect. 

Hanzo arrives. The doorman has had a good, long look at him by now. If he’s been told to watch out for Hanzo, he’s definitely already alert. Nobody comes outside to contact him, and he doesn’t have an earpiece. Hanzo arrives and locks arms with Flores. 

“Gentlemen,” says the looming doorman. Goosebumps from the sudden, rainy chill prickle in his dark skin. Hanzo stares directly into his eyes. He stares back. “Please, come in.” 

At best, the bar is an eyesore. At worst, it’s an affront to every single one of Hanzo’s sensibilities--half of it some sort of druggy gentleman’s club, complete with curtained partitions, the other half a garish sports bar. Black, shining marble tile decks the floor. Shimmying, curving poles painted with highly reflective gold leaf snake up to the ceiling on all sides. Thicker, more direct ones are scattered about the wide, ring-shaped room on the lounge side. Chrome blocks erect from the floor—dancers writhe and flick on some of them. Being a Thursday mid-afternoon, the place is mostly empty. Dull-eyed customers are strung out like loose fabric amongst the ornate, red cushions that sloppily scatter the floor. Hanzo wonders for a quick beat if they’ve spent the night here. 

“Will you sit at the bar?” asks the woman, pointing at the central fixture—an equally gaudy circular bar, also mostly abandoned. She has come out of nowhere, and wears the same makeup as Widowmaker: caked-on, colorful with a tinge of off-white foundation, immense. Her eyes are painted wide, lips thick, she peers over tiny half-moon glasses, body resting confidently in a revealing corset. 

“No, we are here for a particular.” Hanzo folds the card from the back pocket of his trousers, snaking it over to the woman’s sly hands. 

She flicks her eyes across the card. Hanzo sees it; he is watching now. The tiny twitch at the corner of her mouth. He saw it in the doorman, too. If they didn’t know from his appearance, they do now. Hanzo scuffs his shoe against Flores’ ankle. _They know_.

She hands it back to him. “Right this way.” Her high-pitch, off-key voice is another red flag to Hanzo. 

She leads them on a route around the bar, snaking through the various miniature lounges. Sneering with distaste, Hanzo tries not to match eyes with any of the patrons sloped wormlike over edges of pillow and cloth. They look dazed; drunk, high, or both. 

He counts the exits, the windows. Two fire exits are tucked with complacent signs behind the bar itself. The closed, glass panel door with an unobstructed view of the patio is the key focus—Hanzo nestles his elbow against Flores’ side for just a second. 

As Hanzo replies snippy and standoffish to the woman’s attempts at friendly jive, Flores sneaks a few looks: Murray is visible through the glass windows, down the street, a tiny spattering of neon color sitting under an umbrella. A glowering man, this one with an earpiece, leers at her from a table, newspaper spread in front of him, surreptitiously unread. She is engrossed in her phone, or so she looks. Flores coughs loudly, exaggerating the motion, knowing that she is watching. _Ten minutes_.

Arms still locked, Flores and Hanzo follow the hostess up to a door marked V.I.P. It nestles in a far corner of the lounge behind an out-of-place redwood trellis. 

“Enjoy.” She flits, pressing a gentle hand on Flores’ shoulder. He leers at her as she passes by, odiferous perfume visibly wrinkling the animated man’s nose. 

The V.I.P. room is host to more flamboyant red cushioning, complete with a patchwork; low-hanging strands of lilac silk dice the far black wall into vibrantly-edged cubes. Hanzo suppresses a haughty sigh of displeasure at the sight of the place. 

Sleeping patrons are passed out between tufts of crimson, heavy heads pressed cold to the tile flooring. Hanzo’s curiosity spikes at one of them, a gray-haired old man wearing red sunglasses and a tweed suit, rigid-looking against the plush of his spot. His attention piques as their eyes fall upon the woman.

She is in the center, a cluster of cushions delicately strewn around her. Tall, powerful dancer’s legs obscured by black lace. Sinister curls of maroon velvet fall from a frilly lingerie neckpiece that slopes as far as her knees. Facing away from them, she is straightening to a stand as they enter. 

Hanzo looks for the poisonous sting of yellow as she turns to make eye contact.

“Oh, it’s _you_.” 

It is not there. 

Instead there is a mirthful blue. Satisfied eyes. A twist of sadism in a cheery smile. 

Face caked in off-white makeup, same as before, body paint streaming black lines of flame down her skin. Under scrutiny, it is detectable. Below the mesh of the lingerie. Behind the complex lace. Beneath the paint. White skin. This is undoubtedly the owner of the business card slotted between Hanzo’s knuckles. 

But it is not Widowmaker. 

As they proceed forward, Hanzo taps Flores’ hand, movement hidden by their locked arms. _she’s not here_. Flores stops, Hanzo fakes a surprised cry. 

“Sorry, honey.” _danger behind._ Hanzo confirms without looking: twenty feet away, the door back to the lounge has opened again. 

Not-Widowmaker rolls her eyes. “You can drop this now. We’ve seen your obnoxious lookout. Shall I collect her?” 

The door closes, silent, behind them.

“I’m afraid I don’t have any idea what you’re referring to,” slips Flores through pursed lips. 

“Come, come.” She beckons with a lazy flap of her wrist. A shuffle from the corner of the room turns the archer’s attention. A rusty fire-exit door opens to a small recession in the flooring. A patio lies beyond. Standing in the doorway is the most ostentatiously _Talon_ operative Hanzo thinks he’s ever seen. Mask up, eye markers gleaming, rifle held idle at the ground. 

Footsteps. 

Hanzo decides the accent is French, but her voice is different. Somewhere, a pettiness urges on in, small in his mind. He didn’t miss Widowmaker right in front of him. She wasn’t there. It was a coordinated attack. Or… 

From behind Hanzo comes a whoosh. Reflexes winning over surprise, he palms behind him. The skin of his hand catches a police baton. He winces, feeling the bruising instantly. No matter. 

A spin on his heel. A rushed palm to the chest sends the assailant sprawling to his back. Hanzo looks up toward the woman. She is rushing toward the open door. More blinds? Is this all Talon can do? He snaps his head back toward his comrade. 

He’s not there. Hanzo’s eyes trail downward to lock on a collapsed Flores, a drugged out heap on the black floor. The synapse fires instantly: the fucking hostess. 

The dragon curses in Japanese. 

The woman reaches the door, bare feet slapping against the loud metal of the threshold. Hanzo breathes heavy, time slowing down. Preparing to spring. Eyes lock on the barrel of the Talon operative’s gun. 

Movement. A gloved hand. Shrouded fingers wrap around Not-Widowmaker’s elbow, pulling her backwards. Tossing her, a ragdoll, to the tile floor. She sputters, slapping a flat hand to the marble in attempt to elevate herself. The Talon agent outside suddenly collapses, compressing into a pile of black against the soaked flagstone. 

The old man in sunglasses pulls the door shut. Adjusting his discordantly plain tie, standing over his cowering prey, the man sneers behind his sunglasses. 

“Halt,” Hanzo gushes with reactionary rage. 

“Or what?” says the old man, brandishing a small handgun. Hanzo recognizes the shape of a silver .22 mini. The unarmed archer hangs his head to the side, reluctant arms up in surrender. He eludes eye contact with the old man, instead craning an ear toward the far wall. Waiting. 

“What are you up to?” The old man’s voice is gravelly, deep. Rough and scarred, with the mottle of a hardened crusader. 

“I could ask the same of you,” Hanzo sneers. “Who are you?” 

“I’m gonna let you figure that one out. You’re a smart kid.” 

_Kid_. Torbjörn’s patronizing insult broils in Hanzo’s stomach. He peers down at Flores again. Still breathing, passed out. 

The woman tries to scrape to her knees. Once, she fails. The second, the old man grabs her roughly by the shoulder and pitches her to her feet. She rubs said shoulder as she stumbles around, between the two men. A few patrons stir; they’re beginning to wake. 

“This is going to ruin my business,” she pouts. 

“Shut up,” grunts the old man. 

Hanzo steps forward. “Get out of here. You are in the way.” 

“We have a lot of reciprocal feelings for one another, Shimada,” replies the old man coolly. “You really don’t know what you’ve waltzed into, do you? ‘You’ meaning ‘all of you.’” He gestures in the general area of Hanzo and Flores. “Overwatch.”

Hanzo bends his knees, just slightly. 

“Ah ah,” the old man waggles the gun like a grandfather’s finger. “Shut up, stay still, maybe learn a thing or two.” He levels the miniscule barrel at the woman. “Irene Janssen,” he says. 

“That’s me,” the woman runs a hand through her thick, black hair. 

“What is the head of Talon intelligence doing in this podunk city?” 

Hanzo doubles back. That’s who this is. The subterfuge, a card and bomb placed with deft fingers. Irene glowers at the old man, her eyes suddenly sharp and menacing. He glances at the far wall again, panic rising to his chest. All is quiet outside, and it shouldn’t be. It’s been too long. He didn’t send Flores out for a smoke break, so Murray has no reason to delay—

“Who are you to talk about ‘podunk,’ you mayonnaise farm boy?” quips Irene. 

It settles in Hanzo’s chest. The realization comes light and lofty at first, twisting Hanzo’s mouth into a confused snarl. Then it plummets down on the back of his skull like a ball-peen hammer. 

“Jack Morrison,” he breathes, “Seventy-Six.” 

“You’re fast on your feet, tiny man,” bites Irene, “but slow in the head.” 

“I told you to shut up,” Jack growls, flitting the .22 at Hanzo briefly before turning it back on Irene. 

“Why is she here?” questions Jack, pressing closer with the gun. Irene backs up. 

“I haven’t the slightest idea as to the meaning of this drivel,” she murmurs, snakily backing up more. 

“Why did she come here? Why are _you_ following _her_? _Why._ ” Seventy-Six gets more aggressive, jerking the gun further toward her forehead. 

Hanzo’s face burns. He’s lost. The coincidences—plans? Sabotages?—Have smashed through his thought process, wholly blinding him. 

“Little man,” Irene coos. She is still backing up. heel hitting a pillow. She stares at Hanzo through the corner of her eye. “Do you still have my card? I think I’d like it back now.” 

“Answer the question!” Jack roars this time, grinding the barrel into her forehead. She winces and recoils, pushes an instinctual hand against his chest. “Why did Widow go AWOL?” 

What? What? What? Hanzo shakes his head. There’s no opportunity to move without Murray. Irene has to have called the signal now. Where are the guards? What are they _doing_? 

Then it comes. 

The chorus is a vibrant, echoing burst of resonant sound. A boom, residually followed by a series of horns; a cavalcade of noise. The door then begins to pound. They are here, upon them. 

The guests stir. Hanzo drops, yanks the utility knife out of the back of Flores’ trousers. He heaves it at Jack. It forces him to dodge, gun-arm pointed upwards. A mad grab: Hanzo lunges, tucking into a steady tackle around Morrison’s waist. The super-soldier instantly brings the heel of the .22 down on the back of Hanzo’s neck. Nausea blurts from his bowels, his vision blurs. 

They hit the ground, rolling in a scuffle of grunts and straining reaches. Hanzo tries to feel for the gun, wrist against Morrison’s throat. The older man is still spry and fast. Experienced and strong. 

But Hanzo, arms conditioned harshly by kyudo, is stronger. 

“Shimada—you damn—” 

Victory. The archer wrestles the gun out of his grasp just as the door caves in, armed men spilling into the room. Hanzo turns to stone, not a single fiber of his being in movement. 

“You’re better than I thought, little man. What a _ruse_! What is it, flashbangs? Noisemakers? Is your femme fatale having a birthday party in the street? Scandalous!” She shoos at the guards whose firearms are leveled at the crouching Hanzo and the tangled 76 sprawling beside him. “Everybody clear out; the stupid police are on their way.” A spoiled groan. “‘Til next time?” She points a finger-gun at him. “Maybe you can bring the man-friend around, eh?”

Hanzo scrambles, the sirens’ echoes beginning to bounce off the wet stone walls of the building next door. He gathers Flores, struggles to his feet with the larger man sloped over his broad shoulders. One look and he’s dashing toward the patio, top-heavy momentum carrying forward, abdominal strength keeping him from toppling over. Morrison is not far behind as Irene and her troops file out into the bar and beyond to shadow toward whatever base of operations the cutthroat woman has established. 

Outside, in the rain, the police lights are prism-like through rain-soaked asphalt. They are behind the bar now, one block West of Murray and her exploding cab. Jack furiously grabs the scruff of Hanzo’s sweater. 

“You damn idiot,” he chants, “you _moron_.” 

Hanzo shoots a glare. He pries Morrison’s fingers off his collar, none-too-gentle. “You got in the way. We could have extracted her. What were you going to do? You charge in, alone? Is this how the mercenary who used to lead Overwatch behaves?” 

“Who said I was alone?” 

Hanzo freezes. Almost literally. The Talon agent, suddenly unconscious. His blood runs solid as he suddenly feels exactly how sopping wet he is. He can feel it. The eyes. The gaze he himself has cast on many an enemy in the past. The gaze of a predator. No hesitation. Ready to strike. The gaze of a hawk. Reminiscent of the chill bite in the air the night of the Widowmaker’s attack. 

The gaze of a sniper. 

Jack is still fuming. “I was close to answers, Shimada, and you _fucked_ it up. Don’t think I won’t be watching your ragtag little team from now on. You’re the one in the way here.” 

“Explain yourself. What did that _mean_ , Widowmaker has gone AWOL?” Hanzo demands, matching in fury now. The cold exacerbates it, his vision turning blue. Suffocating any patience, any self-control he might’ve had. He felt it. The sheer, pale grey climbing up, piercing his heart. Perching it on a willow tree over a frozen stream, dripping crimson onto the ice.

“Hah. Demands. Kick rocks.” The soldier is off, sprinting inhumanly fast. Hanzo, even if he weren’t weighted down by Flores, cannot even hope to keep up.

A small solace softens the bewildered archer as the gaze lifts; Jack flashes blue and red down a waterlogged alleyway. 

***

The sky is still dark. Everything is shades of gray, save for the warm, golden lights inside buildings, the bright traffic lights, and the occasional colorful flurry of a neon sign. The rain has let up, distending a heavy chill and a thin fog that settles at the ankles. Sullen, empty, blanched. 

Hanzo regroups with Murray at the planned location—a rental car service. Flores sits groggily in a waiting room chair while Hanzo leers at the world outside. A spattering of images scrawls across the folds of his disorganized thoughts. A mosaic, broken down and emptied, devoid of reasoning. 

“You delayed,” he states pointedly when the petit woman arrives.

Murray balls her fists. “I’m so sorry—“ 

“Explain later.” He interrupts with a sharp stare. “I am thinking.” 

“Yes, boss,” she relents, sinking into her own chair with an embarrassed flush. 

Hanzo checks Flores once-over, who sways as he tries to meet eyes. The captain turns back away to glower through the rain-pattered windows. 

None of that made any sense. Nothing connected. It felt as though he’d stepped into some zone where causality was no longer a principle. Walking away with triple the questions and no answers left Hanzo bared with shame and rage. If Widowmaker is AWOL, why is she here with Talon? She’s not here with Talon? How did they orchestrate the attack? He grits his teeth, the vindictive dragon writhing in anguish at the back of his throat. Another failure. Another mystery unsolved. More players, too.

Irene: wicked, manic, lethal. Conniving and slippery. The most aggravating type of opponent. What is she after? 

Jack: stubborn, angry, violent. A charging bull with nothing to lose. Astonishingly dangerous. What does he know? _What does he know?_

It is a dichotomy that only adds to the distress. Hanzo barely feels the pen in his hands as he signs rental papers with an alias. His task force gets in a cheap rental car that murmurs and belches onto the highway, Grand Junction’s lazy mouth closing in a gray static behind him. 

“From the beginning,” Hanzo finally says, hands wrapped wearily around the steering wheel. 

Murray clears her throat, and looks back at the sleeping figure of Flores stretched out, lolling over the edge of the back seat. 

“Do not worry about him. I am sure Christen will deduce it is a mild sedative.” He corners her in his eye, repetitive. “From the beginning.” Raspy and worn. 

“Okay,” Murray exhales softly through her nose. “I set up at the café. I rigged my cab perfectly, the driver wasn’t even paying attention, I promise,” she justifies. Hanzo’s shoulders drop. “So I got out and immediately went to recall the cab, just so I could push the button when I needed to.”

“Efficient,” Hanzo praises in the midst of his annoyance. 

“So I saw Flores cough. So. Ten minutes. And I saw the door guy stand up and follow you into the VIP room. I counted three minutes when I saw a woman in a window above and across the street.” 

“What? Slow down,” Hanzo cautions. “Did you get a chance to memorize her appearance?” 

“Not really, she looked all raggedy and old, and she was wearing an overcoat. She had brown skin, maybe Hispanic or Middle-Eastern.” Murray has lost her nervousness now, and barrels keenly into the story. “I know she saw me, because she opened her coat and flashed a pistol. I kept my mouth shut and went inside the café, and called my cab. So, then…” 

Hanzo glances at her. He clears his throat, prodding her to continue. Her eyes look soft, puffy around the edges. 

“Sorry, uh, I walked out toward the cab, and I’d put the button under the dash thingy, and I got in, and…” Murray fumbles. She stares straight forward, quickly looks at Hanzo, then out the window to her side. She laughs a little bit to herself. “He was literally like, asleep. With a needle in his neck. I looked out the window, and the woman was gone. I don’t know how much time passed, but I panicked a little bit. I had to haul him out of the car to make sure he didn’t die, I checked his pulse and stuff before I detonated the rig. He was definitely asleep, so… I dunno. But that’s what took me so long. I’m sorry. I didn’t see her coming. I—”

“Enough.” Hanzo grips the steering wheel tighter now.

He put her right under sniper fire. He threw her and Flores into danger for nothing but a desperate view of the truth turning the corner and sprinting away, a haughty jackrabbit. He fumes, clutching the wheel with such gusto that it begins to make a slipping noise in his hands. 

“Boss?” Murray looks up at Hanzo from her position, eyes fearful, but discreet. He attempts to soften as he gives her another once-over. He’s put them through the ringer. The self-hatred, the boiling regret, it stacks up behind his eyes, flashing a black-and-red moment. 

Genji’s eyes, wide. Blood on the toe of Hanzo’s shoe. Dark platelets with a backdrop of unassuming tatami. _You can’t help but shed blood. You can’t do anything else. You can’t._

“Drive,” says Hanzo, jerking the car over to the shoulder of the highway. The blue hoverpads sputter with the extra motion, rumbling the car in a sonorous echo. 

“Uh, okay.” Murray says. 

They exchange seats, Hanzo reclined back in the passenger seat, staring at the ceiling of the car. His arms are folded over his chest. Derisive, withdrawn. “Be silent,” He warns. Murray heeds, lips pressed tight. 

Hanzo thought he was past this. Seeing his brother. Meeting McCree. Becoming a leader. Baby steps on the path towards redemption. He doesn’t want Murray or Flores seeing him this way, now. Especially with no alcohol around. He grits teeth tight, eyes fixed upwards. Every fiber of his being tensed, he pushes the saltiness out from the corner of his eyes. The highest dishonor, he muses incoherently against the self-flagellation tearing through his organs. Letting your subordinates see you disintegrate into a silent child. 

Pathetic. 

***

Hanzo spends the next two days in dire straits. He phones Genji and Jesse, (the latter of the two jumps at the chance to comfort him with the former merely bringing the ache to a head in Hanzo’s chest, though he tries) he wanders. Collects himself for a few minutes on the observation deck, then clears out, completely unable to keep his legs still.

The Watchpoint, even in just a single day, has had vast improvements in defense. Torbjörn has installed foglights, track-lighting in alleyways and dark corners. There are even two turrets posted just beyond the main entrance gate, offline due to wiring concerns, but constructed. The cafeteria renovation is the engineer’s next focus. Grand Mesa, shiny from moisture, provides a vista into which Hanzo readily escapes when he can. Gazing far, out into the vast forests and rumbling sky, watching mud slide through rolling hillsides and birds raucously fight over the territory of the trees. It offers only a moment’s reprieve, soon the pain has returned. 

He drowns. Salt spills through his mouth and eyes. He doesn’t sleep. The rage threatens to crescendo in horrific tenor every time he has to speak to someone. He keeps his encounters short, his words shorter. Jesse’s face echoing in his mind, he clings to the anticipation he’d spurned just two days ago. A piece of driftwood in a churning wave of frozen water. A lighthouse, spinning repetitively in the foggy distance. 

In his hectic frenzy of defensive maneuvers, Torbjörn didn’t notice Hanzo was gone for nearly eight hours. His team patrolled tight, Vandergild at the reins a choppy, relentless storm of gruffness. Now his team is reunited. “Home,” in a sense. Hanzo let Murray debrief them, had her draft a message to Winston, and retired early the night they returned from the bar. 

Hanzo lets loose, rapid-fire thoughts bounce around the chasm of his skull. He surrenders to them, lets them blanket him in a mess of angst and confusion. Lattice of unconnected events dissolve into further nonsense. Widowmaker acting on her own, but somehow colluding with Irene? Irene acting on her own? A schism in Talon? Isn’t Widowmaker neutrally conditioned? Where is she now? Why hasn’t she returned? The apparition, the black smoke, oozing like Hanzo's thoughts out of a pained nose. And then, wry: this would be the perfect time. A bleary-eyed archer unable to defend his post against the machinations of a blue-skinned spider. 

Overwatch. Jesse. Genji, Murray, Flores. Torbjörn. Chelsea, Vandergild. Gilbert, Christen, Carlson, _Hardy_. Tears sting with the latter. They’re all the same thing: more than Hanzo ever deserved.

Unrepentant disgust fills Hanzo, too. What is this? He needs to be investigating. Talk to Torbjörn. Talk to everyone who ever knew Amélie Lacroix. Gather it all, piece it together. Make the truth out of the shattered glass. Find Jack. Get him to talk. He knows. He knows what Hanzo needs to know. He knows everything. Something. Anything.

And what is Hanzo, the captain of the defense team doing? Swallowing discontent as if it sat at the bottom of an invisible sake gourd? 

Saturday night. Hanzo drags a hand across the rough concrete of the mess hall, letting the sounds of drills and an angry Swedish dwarf engulf his mind. He hopes they will drown out his thoughts. 

“Boss?” a squeamish voice falters behind him. He turns slowly, lapping up the sight of the clustered Murray. Hardy’s jacket wrapped tight around her, she bites her lip in concern at the captain. 

Hanzo realizes he is slumped against the wall. He pushes away with his shoulder, staggering upright. “What is it you need.” 

“I don’t need anything, I just…” She pulls Hardy’s jacket closer.

The hesitation spurs an impatient growl in Hanzo’s chest. “Speak.” 

“Are you going to reprimand me?” she blurts, leaning forward. A grimace shoots across her face. 

“What?”

“For goofing. For fucking up. It’s been days. You haven’t said a word.” 

Hanzo barks a short, miserable laugh. “You did not ‘fuck up.’” 

“But you said—”

“ _I_ did. I led you into a lethal situation and have no results to show for it.” He turns toward the alley behind the observation deck. The dam threatens to break. “I am sorry.” 

“Hardy would break a glass over your head for saying that,” Murray murmurs without so much as a pause. 

Hanzo whips his head back to face Murray, black eyes invading hers. “Pardon?” 

“That was her favorite saying,” Murray says, “she always said she’d break a glass over someone’s head when she was mad.” Hanzo remembers; Hardy had threatened Gilbert with the very words after a chaotic game of Texas Hold ‘Em. The tears well up in Murray’s eyes. “She’d be mad at you right now, boss.” 

Hanzo’s heart breaks. Here, this tumultuous moodswing of his, pales in comparison to the fresh grief that wracks Murray’s body. 

“This is our job,” Murray says. “We signed up for this. We _chose_ to follow you.” Voice breaking: “She chose to follow you.” 

It breaks; fissures form in the hard surface of Hanzo’s shell. A pulse spreads forth, crackling. In his dismay, buried in his flashbacks, he’d reversed the rules. He’s been acting as if he’d plucked them out of comfortable lives and threw them into the battlefield. They chose him; he must honor their choice. 

“Rest,” Hanzo breathes out, distant now. “It is late.” 

Murray straightens and sets her jaw. Determination spreads across her torn face. An unspoken salute, and an unspoken promise. They will not fail each other again. “Boss.” She turns and departs, wisping into the cool night air. A slender frame in the stinging mountain wind. 

Aching and feverish, Hanzo is desperate for sleep. He skulks through the freshly dusted dorm halls. The lights are working with greater brilliance inside, too, which somehow tires him more. He yields to exhaustion as the door opens to his quarters, sparse and clinically methodized. Lonely and empty.

Hanzo is the same. With the small comfort of Murray’s encouragement, he temporarily stills his sputtering mind. Now, it’s just numbness. Empty. He slopes into the bed, clothing still on, unthinking. Untethered by the ache. Listless, he yields to exhaustion. 

***

At some moment in the night, the door to Hanzo’s quarters slides open. The sleep-deprived sniper does not stir. At some point, he unconsciously wriggled out of his clothing and heaped himself underneath the thin sheets. 

The placement of luggage stirs the spartan room. Metal touches metal, various garments jangling as they are removed. 

Heavy footsteps. The bed creaks. Weight lolls Hanzo onto his back, still submerged in fatigue. 

A warm, sunny arm spreads a sudden fire across Hanzo’s abdomen. Bristling, a beard, followed by the familiar press of soft lips, burrows into his neck. He creaks, tiptoes back into consciousness. Warmth, weight, and tobacco smoke are coalesced at his side. 

Rolling and rich. Affectionate, comforting. Homely. 

“Hey, sweetheart.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kicking it into high gear here; more action to come. 
> 
> Thanks for sticking with me, the few of you, I'm growing more and more excited about this by the second.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: There's some sexual content right here at the beginning. Also, this got pretty violent about two-thirds through.

A warm, rustic cabin glowing cozily in an infinite blizzard. Or an oasis. Parched, dune-laden desert as far as the limits of Hanzo’s imagination can extend. A spiral cut of blue sky at the bottom of a black pit. Even just a simple light in the exhausting floes of darkness. 

Hanzo picks the oasis, and drinks. 

“You’re early.” Compressed in a vibrant embrace, he nests his fingers in the curve of Jesse’s spine. Groggy and worn, but saturated with unfocused, trembling relief. The boisterous cavern of Hanzo’s chest is brimming with his presence. And, God, does he fill it so _well_. The man has carved a Jesse-shaped hole in his heart. He rests in it now, stroking the black slashes of Hanzo’s hair and speaking light and affectionate into his scalp. 

“I forgot I was lookin’ at Gibraltar time when I gave it to ya,” Jesse says, choking on an embarrassed laugh. “Mm, you got a little tan goin’ on. Fuckin’ gorgeous.”

Hanzo says nothing, cheek against barreled chest. A snug silence hangs down over them, curled into each other under papery bedding. Hanzo wakes more, gradually allowing himself to bask in the presence of his lover. Big and broad, a strong slab of heat flat against a cheap bed. Sly and perceptive, too—a disarming glint beckons deep behind the shine of his earthy eyes. Slowly, then exponentially, the unfettered joy bursts from Hanzo’s chest; he exhales rough through his nostrils. 

“Uh, Hanzo.” Jesse lifts one arm from around Hanzo’s shoulder. “Your heart’s beatin’ a mile a minute.” 

“Jesse.” 

“Yeah.” 

Soft fingers frame Jesse’s face. They press, leveraging Hanzo’s lips to Jesse’s, and vice versa. It swells, radiating a sweet, prickling heat from both of their chests, now meeting. From the space between, the sparks burst forth as he devours Jesse’s tongue, wholly consumed. Greedy. Thirsty. _Starving._ The sparks climax, a staccato burst of lust blooms into Hanzo’s anatomy. 

Jesse drags a flat palm down the dragon tattoo, retreating into carnal pleasure as he presses down past the sniper’s navel. Hanzo, too, rakes light fingers up Jesse’s thick arms. Lips still pressed together, the blur of desiderate greed comes to a head. 

Hanzo stills. Tenses. Jesse gets the message right away, latching big hands onto the shorter man’s hips. 

“You’re gonna drive me up the fence,” Jesse croons, rugged voice thick with desire. 

Hanzo doesn’t reply. He only surges, wrapping his sculptured legs around Jesse’s broad thighs, thrusting up through their briefs. He slips a hand into Jesse’s. 

“Careful,” Jesse rolls into Hanzo’s ear. “The box you’re about to open’s been burstin’ for a while, sweetheart.” 

“Hush, cattle-herd.” 

“That one’s a reach.” Jesse lifts at the end with a low groan; Hanzo curls his soft fingers around him. 

“Hold up a minute, honey,” he sighs, leaning back. 

Hanzo settles into a burdened simmer. “What.” 

“You sure you’re all right? You don’t…” he trails off, squaring off at Hanzo’s pale, worn face. Even under the blush of a hard-on, the last six weeks of despair is etched into his features. “You don’t look so good.” 

“I am fine. Relax and come here.” Hanzo pulls lightly on Jesse’s shoulder. 

Jesse raises an eyebrow, hesitant. The insistent prodding of the hand in his briefs eventually wears him down: “Okay, okay,” nestled deep in Hanzo’s clavicle. 

Hanzo strokes him rhythmically, breathing in line with the motion. His body, pale and slick, slowly warms as he grinds against the gunslinger. Breathing heavier, he relishes every wandering touch, shuddering with indulgent glee. Soon he is purring into Jesse. He sinks a savory, slow bite into the sandpaper flesh of his partner’s untrimmed neck. 

Jesse sweeps a wide hand down Hanzo’s abdomen, treating him the same, following a similar rhythm as he presses rough knuckles into his pelvis. The gunslinger utters an eager hum, thrusting heavy into the archer’s hands; he’s been neglected, too. 

They climax together, vocalizing rough grunts that fade into the flatness of Hanzo’s mattress. Jesse pulls him in close, wrapping the two of them together. A helix of warmth, grainy fire coating a gleaming stretch of ice. Steaming, smoking, melting into the morning light from the open window, Hanzo settles into the sticky entanglement, heartily contented. And, by the blemishing beam on his face, emphatically satisfied. 

“I missed you,” Hanzo murmurs across the sheets. The back of his hand rests on Jesse’s metal forearm. 

“I feel it, darlin’. You just made a mess outta me. Shit, I thought you were gonna draw blood.” He rubs his neck, rough fingers grazing over the deep indentations from Hanzo’s teeth. 

“I was hungry.” 

Jesse snorts, rolls over, and sits up. “Shower with me. C‘mon.” He pulls on Hanzo’s hand. 

Hanzo glides over and lets McCree guide him to his feet, hand in hand. He doesn’t let go as they cross the room, bare and unwashed. 

“Gee,” Jesse remarks, furrowed and smug. He scrutinizes Hanzo’s flushed face. “You look much better now.”

***

Hanzo stands by in the central courtyard, arms folded against his chest, as Jesse tips his hat and leans his chin forward into the serape. “Howdy.” 

Torbjörn and the engineering crew have just marched on to the final stages of the mess hall rehabilitation. With the supplies and extra staff Jesse’s airdrop brought in, they’re finally able to rewire the building and most likely the majority of the defense system. They’ll reinstall the flooring and, with some help from Hanzo’s team, completely reupholster the dining area. Torbjörn seemed a little more agreeable when speaking with Hanzo this time around, especially after the defensive captain agreed to let him “borrow” Carlson and Murray for a while: a hand stretched out in reluctant truce.

The defensive team is lined up before McCree in a straight queue; a long-awaited meeting. The heat settles in a sheen mirror over the Watchpoint. It will thicken and shroud everyone with sweat as the day ticks on. Unkempt weeds brush their ankles. The brick walkway is cracked and faded. Overgrown. Nobody has touched this area since the attack.

He goes through each of their faces, pausing to consider in the dawning afternoon. Introduces himself: “Name’s McCree.” Finger guns. Flashing charm and woodsy appeal. The whole package, the complete Jesse. He shakes each of their hands, shoots an amiable remark, and moves to the next. 

Gilbert. A grizzled face, strong jaw, thick lips. Black eyes, similar to Hanzo’s. Bodybuilder. Swollen in his tactical outfit. Typical soldier. Like Jack. 

Flores. Long eyelashes. Sly smile, tawny but lean frame. Tall, graceful. Flamboyant. Still slightly blanched from being drugged three days ago. Structural analysis and demolitions. 

Carlson. Lanky and thin. Flexible, long face. Wears an exaggerated grimace everywhere he goes. Specializes in stealth.

Murray. Petit, bright-eyed, and considerably brilliant. Analytical, resilient. She meets Jesse with a lack of eye contact and a tired face. He will ask Hanzo later why she grieves. Handy with a sniper. 

Christen. Speaks with an Afrikaans accent. Competent doctor, air of detached expertise. His eyes pierce gray-blue against pinked skin; he is not used to the mountain sun. 

Vandergild. Jesse scratches his face at this one. They crane their necks the same way when they make eye contact. Jesse hooks his hands on his belt buckles: Vandergild leans back with his hands flat on his wide hips. The gunslinger shoots an unreadable look at Hanzo, who stares off toward the thundering sounds of the mess hall renovation. 

Flores leans to Murray, “He’s totally showing us off.” When she releases a subtle giggle, he continues. “I think this means we have two dads now.” 

Hanzo pretends not to hear around his reddening ears and hot face as he scans the horizon. Wet heat surges up from the monsoon-soaked trees. Fresh pine and wildflower drift on open wind. It’s easy for Hanzo to lose himself in. Something about the scent of that rugged, Rocky Mountain vista; a perfect backdrop for the delightful image of McCree at the Watchpoint, a lazy green breeze lilting at the edges of his hat. He’s here. He’s actually--

“Boss,” tunes Christen. Hanzo’s eyes land back on the physician. Jesse and the team are turned toward him expectantly. “Patrols?” 

Hanzo cracks his neck, an awkward recovery. “The usual. Put the new recruits on night crew.” Eyes everywhere but Jesse, who looks unabashedly smug in the corner of his vision. “Vandergild, with us.” 

***

Torbjörn and Chelsea are already in the research lab, connected and talking to Winston when the three of them arrive. Torbjörn has just reported that they have exactly the wiring they need to power the few turrets and spotlights they managed to rig up in the post-Widow panic. 

Head straight with an appeased snort on his face, Winston looks much better-rested than the last call. He sits upright, speaks with the same, quick-to-startle and socially oblivious candor. He greets Chelsea and Vandergild first, struggling with Vandergild’s name. He corrects, flustering, then addresses the whole room. 

“Hey, guys.” A peek at Jesse. “How’s the reunion going?” 

“Shit, Hanzo’s got a whole litter of pups nippin’ at his ankles,” Jesse laughs. He speaks out of the corner of his mouth, but loud enough for everyone to hear: “Color me impressed, sweetheart.” Hanzo shoves a resentful elbow into his side. Vandergild grimaces uncomfortably. 

“Can we get to th’ point? I’m running so far behind schedule it’ll be printed on m’ gravestone!” Torbjörn growls. 

“You’re right, sorry Torb,” concedes the strike commander. He shifts in his seat, folding his massive finger pads together. “I have two big announcements. The first is that the lockdown is lifted, which means I’m not monitoring your main gate anymore or anything. Make sure you keep an eye out at night, though, Hanzo.” 

“Aw, he knows what he’s doin’,” says McCree. Hanzo, who can speak for himself, throws his head back with a heavy frown. 

“The second is that I’ve been doing a little digging. Have you looked through those files Genji sent you yet, Hanzo?” The gorilla inclines inquisitively. 

“No, I passed them off as ‘evidence’ to support his ungrounded theories.” 

“Ain’t a theory,” McCree mutters. Four hours and Hanzo already prickles in irritation with his lover’s big mouth. 

Vandergild stirs in his position against a desk, similar to Chelsea; observers and students. Reporters.

“I will see if there is something pertinent in them today,” Hanzo continues. 

“No, don’t.” Winston waves timidly, coughing. “It’s worthless. All of that stuff is fake.” 

“What’s this got to do with me?” Torbjörn says, folding his arms. Hanzo finally takes a hard look at Torbjörn’s new arm—as “utilitarian” as the lost one, faced with a dense chrome. “Us?” He gestures toward Chelsea, who looks as though she might fall asleep at any second. 

“You might want to know what’s going on in the base you’re trying to rebuild,” Winston puffs. “Hanzo, the reason all that stuff is fake is that Reyes had something to do with a big cover-up on Grand Mesa’s grounds. The real documents, which were filed somewhere else—that’s weird enough—don’t say anything. They’re all blacked out. I had Lúcio and his team take a look. There’s nothing salvageable, except some weird stuff about a bug species? Which, actually, I’m not finding a lot on.” And then, to McCree: “You know anything about this?” 

“I woulda told ya if I did, big guy,” Jesse says, removing his hat and planting a metal hand on the top of his own head. 

“Is there a method with which to procure any information on that? Something I can do, here?” asks Hanzo. The idea of an event that required a cover-up happening in this backwater area puzzles Hanzo. This was primarily just a research laboratory, last he checked. 

“Not particularly. Which brings me to my next thing,” Winston says, adjusting his glasses. He hides his exposed canine through a gruff, serious frown. “I think Talon knows what it is, and I think that’s why they specifically targeted the administrative complex. If there was anything to help us found out what happened, it was in there.”

“Speaking of that, I have news to report.” Hanzo tries to read the inscrutable look of surprise on Winston. Perhaps the strike commander didn’t expect Hanzo to have made any headway on a lockdown. “On Thursday, I took a small team and investigated a bar containing a Talon operation. Off-book. I paid with my own money.” 

The deadening silence unsettles Hanzo the most. It lingers, stinging his nose. Jesse brushes against him. The archer looks up and sees nothing but genuine concern in the other man’s eyes. His heart bathes in a warmth, despite the dourness in the air. 

“You _what?_?” barks Torbjörn, raising his claw at Hanzo. “How were ye gone fer a whole day?” 

A sharp glare. “I am good at what I do.” Hanzo isn’t scared of Torbjörn. Or Winston, really. So the dread in his chest, what is it for? For whom does it froth and bubble? 

“Jesse,” says Winston. “You are now the defensive coordinator for the Watchpoint.” 

Hanzo blanches. The fury, placid and hostile, groans into him as a subzero wind. 

“You got it, big guy.” Jesse tips his hat.

The words, they confuse him. Is Jesse speaking Spanish? Is it English? Did he forget English? He trembles, shoulders tight. Lousy with rage. 

“That is _not_ what I signed up for,” says Vandergild. McCree licks his canine, eyeing a dark gleam at the initiate. 

“Hanzo, I don’t know what to do with you. I’ll let you know, later. I guess, for now, get ready to—” 

“Jack Morrison and an unknown hostile sniper are here, in Grand Junction. Irene Janssen, head of Talon security, is here, in Grand Junction. Widowmaker has attacked the base once, then vanished.” 

Torbjörn and Winston both stare with low-hanging jaws. 

“Jack Morrison said that the Widowmaker went ‘AWOL.’” Scare quotes. “And you’re playing games with the chain-of-command.” Hanzo breathes a cold, empirical gust as he rasps the angry soliloquy.

“Ye _fuck–_ ” 

Hanzo sucks in a sharp breath and slams his fist down on a stainless steel console table, silencing the engineer. “No. I refuse to comply with this. My team is keeping this Watchpoint safe.” He turns to Jesse. With the crack of frozen metal breaking on a stone floor: “ _My_ team.” Vandergild shuffles with stretch of the neck.

“What did you say?” Winston charges. His voice brawls through the speakers, overloading them with a distinct crackle. “Jack is there?” 

Jesse whistles. “Never thought we’d see ‘im after Nepal.” A resentment tacks onto his voice. “Seemed hell-bent on runnin’ off to wherever Overwatch _aint,_ not where we were and surely not where we are now.” 

“Silence,” Hanzo hisses. He glowers at Winston. “You may delegate however you see fit.”, Fumes still aggravating his movements, he sweeps a broad stroke of flat palm. “I am leading this team.” 

“Hanzo, confirm what you just said. That’s an order. Is Jack there? Where, exactly?” Winston grows softer, meekly retreating, almost head-hung. 

A scoff. “Yes. Jack Morrison held me at gunpoint.” He leaves out the detail that one of his subordinates was almost sniped out of the game while the other was drugged, a residual trickle of shame falling across his brow—he can’t help but to look briefly toward Vandergild, who remains stoically off-put, drumming his meaty fingers into folded arms. “I have no clue where he is now.” 

Torbjörn, silently trembling in the corner, finally bursts. Chelsea flinches, having almost dozed off. “Jack’s here? Ye just left without telling me? Ye just let ‘im go? Ye son of a bitch. He belongs here!” the Swede is roaring now, spittle flapping in vibrato off his lips. “We,” he shouts and gestures violently at Hanzo, “are _done_. Jus’ stay away from me.” 

He jerks his head again at Chelsea and she uneasily slips behind him. Hanzo notes, in his cold glare as she shuffles off, that she looks a little more than tired. She looks absolutely gaunt. Her eyes are glazed. They’re dry, bloodshot. Hanzo knows those eyes. If she got any sleep, she was either drinking or crying around it. 

Naturally, Jesse notices too. Hanzo looks up to see his eyes trailing her as the door shuts behind them. 

“Guys,” Winston mutters from the communication screen, “I don’t want to do this. Hanzo, trust me. I’ll have a reprimand for that nonsense you pulled. But here’s the thing.” He stops, exhales sharply. Considers for a moment before locking eyes with the archer once again. “I need you to pull some more.” 

“What? You threaten me with a demotion and ask this of me in the same breath.” Hanzo swallows incredulity, raising one eyebrow. If the gorilla is serious, he doesn’t know how he’ll react. 

Vandergild huffs quietly into the corner, knocking his combat boots together. 

“I’m sorry. I jumped the gun when I said that. I’m... it’s only been a year. I’m new at this.” He’s ashamed. Hanzo realizes it, the soft amber of the scientist’s eyes is muddled with an intangible sadness: Winston’s battle with his temper has always been a problem for him. As if spurred by the break, the scientist straightens suddenly, slipping back into the leer of command. After everything, and despite having much to learn, he wears it well. “We need to find Jack. He obviously has information. And he’ll obviously know what it is that Gabe covered up. With the defense systems online and malleable, you have more movement available.” 

“Jack ain’t the hidin’ type. Whoever he’s got with ‘im might be better if he hasn’t popped up yet,” Jesse says distantly, chewing his lower lip. He stares through the communication screen, not at Winston. 

“I’m not happy, don’t get me wrong,” Winston grumbles, “but I think we do what we have to, these days. Resources aren’t like what they used to be.”

Hanzo concedes, low on energy, high on anxiety. He admits, internally. He is not young; not everything is worth the tooth-and-nail anymore. Plus, the gorilla is right. Hanzo was thinking the same thing. “Fine.” 

A voice flutters in on the other end of the line. Hanzo can’t hear it too well, it sounds jumbled, but he thinks it might be Mercy. Winston shoots a surprised grimace off-camera. 

“Uh, I gotta go. Try not to make Torbjörn any angrier. Jesse, you know how to calm him down.” 

“Yessir.” 

Winston fades. 

Jesse toots an impressed whistle as they make their way to the dorms. “Angels be damned, darlin’, lookie what _you_ made. A team that can go up against _Talon._ ” He paws at Hanzo with gleaming metal; it once and again gets batted away. The archer subdues the gunslinger with a wrought-iron look that says he’d better keep his hands to himself. 

“You knew I was just sayin’ what he wanted to hear, right? I’d sooner die of heatstroke than take this away from you.” 

“I did not know that.”

“Well, you do now. And we just got the go-ahead to scout the town together. I can show you some stuff.” He leans in close to Hanzo without touching. “Nice stuff. We can have a look-around.” 

“Save it. I am thinking.” Hanzo ponders what Vandergild thought of the meeting. Embarrassed by Jesse, embarrassed by Winston. Largely unaffected by Torbjörn’s outburst, confident in Jesse’s ability to quell the engineer. Every time they hold a meeting, it’s a struggle. Hanzo wonders if maybe he should’ve relented, let Jesse speak to the superior while he led his team without confrontation. 

The link snatches on the back of his neck, jerking him to a stop in front of the dorms. Jesse ambles by ahead, only pausing after a few seconds. Hanzo realizes it, the afternoon bearing down on him with radiant heat. Just how _they_ operated. The shells. The has-beens. Those _cowards_ , Hanzo grits his teeth around a plume of anger. 

“Jesse.” 

“Yup?” 

He catches up to the sun-baked figure, weaving their arms together. The metal is hot, reflective. It almost scalds, but Hanzo clutches the gunslinger nonetheless. 

***

Hanzo decides to scope out Grand Junction four days later. The Watchpoint has reactivated now, recovering. Wide-eyed and ready for a follow-up. Hanzo’s team has become hyperaware, having completely familiarized themselves with the immediate surrounding area. Almost two weeks later and no sign of the Widowmaker. Hanzo nods at passing doubt that she’s still in the area at all, and would hold onto it if it weren’t for Irene and Jack.

A busy rush of Torbjörn’s staff has overtaken Grand Mesa, running panel after panel of wiring through building after building. Torbjörn and Chelsea are often in the middle of everything, with Chelsea off and bustling to deliver delegations and Torbjörn marking things on a desk. Occasionally, Hanzo will spot him dozing or chugging his canteen. Others, he’ll spy him dutifully tinkering with various odds and ends of the defensive spectrum. 

The one thing Hanzo never sees is Torbjörn in his quarters. The engineer has thrown himself into his work ever since the revelation about Jack. Hanzo is unable to grasp at the reasoning behind his actions, even after Jesse attempts to explain Torbjörn’s trust issues. Hanzo asks Jesse if he shares these concerns, swallowing down the meeting with Winston and the moments thereafter. The gunslinger always replies with an oblivious shake of the head and a shrug: “he don’t even trust _me_ half the time,” although Hanzo has learned this much: Jesse always knows more than he lets on. 

On the top of Hanzo’s observations about Torbjörn’s team is Chelsea. By the day, or even by the hour, the young woman looks more soured and more distraught, her round face becoming more drawn and unrested. She frantically bustles around Torbjörn, snapping into reality only when he speaks to her and zoning out everywhere else. Torbjörn doesn’t show any latent concern in Hanzo’s eyes, but they obviously operate on different wavelengths. Still, Hanzo notices that Torbjörn works her too hard for her obvious physical condition. 

The progress of the Watchpoint is pushed to the back of Hanzo’s mind when they begin staffing the Grand Junction run. Jesse, Hanzo, Gilbert, and Flores are taking the leftover, bumbling supply truck on what basically amounts to a grocery trip; Winston couldn’t provide perishables with Jesse, the new staff, and the technical supplies. While Gilbert and Flores procure food at a depot, Jesse and Hanzo will scout through town for any sign of Jack or his mysterious friend. 

Gilbert drives, with Flores as the passenger. Behind Flores, Jesse stares intently out at the passing slats of green as the mid-summer mountains slide by. 

“Nostalgic?” Hanzo asks. 

Jess gives a lighthearted shrug. “Eh, I’m more home a little _further_ South, ain’t gonna lie.” He rolls down the window a tick, lights a cigarillo, and puffs it out the crack into the wind. “I been through here a couple of times, but nothin’ with the Watchpoint or anything. Just Blackwatch jazz. Rootin’ out stray Deadlocks and what-have-yous.” 

“Deadlock used to have a way stronger presence in this area,” murmurs Flores. Thoughtful, he also lights a cigarette and cracks a window. 

“You’re welcome,” Jesse brags, sniffing. “Hey, Hanzo.” 

“Yes?” Hanzo looks up from his phone; Genji appears to be on a six-text rant. 

“You never did give me those sweet details about your little escapade.” He grins. 

Hanzo simmers. “Ultimately, it was a failure. Jack got in the way and held me at gunpoint. His sniper friend knocked a few guards and a cab driver out with some long-range anesthetic.” 

Jesse drops his cigarillo, showering sparks in a spiral throughout the truck cabin. Gilbert coughs in annoyance, waving his hand in front of his face. “Wh-what!” He scrambles to grab the cigarillo and stomp out the detached cherry. “Did you say? Long-range anesthetic?” He demands, barking for a response. 

“Yes! Are you out of your mind?” Hanzo rasps, opening his window. 

“Hanzo, that was Ana’s ole deal. Ana Amari? She taught me how to use my Dead-Eye.” 

“I remember the name. You think she’s alive? Further, you think she’s with Jack?” 

“Don’t it make sense?” Jesse relights the cigarillo and chews on it thoughtfully. “She always had a way of makin’ sure he kept his head outta his ass. Look at what happened when she ‘died.’” Jesse makes a mime of 76’s visor over his face. “Everyone else who apparently died ain’t fuckin’ dead, and Widow’s the one that supposedly offed her in the first place.” The last statement comes with a fiery snap of anger. 

“Is this wishful thinking, or a legitimate hypothesis? Tranquilizer guns are not exactly uncommon,” Hanzo says. 

“Guess we’ll have to wait ‘n—”

Jesse’s window shatters. He flinches, serape thrown upwards in a panic before settling down over a drawn Peacekeeper. 

Hanzo rolls to the side. The back window of the truck also explodes, raining broken glass onto Hanzo’s curled form. Flores curses in surprise, slamming his window down and producing a pistol from a leg holster. 

“Who is it?” Gilbert demands, jerking the wheel to the right. Beside the truck is a sheer wall of cliff, and the other side is a flat descent down into tall pine. Jesse takes one, still peek out the window and buckles back in as the bright flash of a chain bolts past the window. 

“Fuckin’ Deadlock!” Jesse shouts, ducking as another shot rings off the paneling. 

“My bow is in the back,” Hanzo rasps. Jesse nods. 

“Flores!” Hanzo shouts over the whipping wind as Gilbert throttles the clutch and throws the truck into a higher gear. 

Flores flicks his cigarette out the window and pulls up on the door handles. After a brief dodge back inside, he fires twice out the window, then ducks back in again. 

“They’re fucking with us,” he breathes. 

Jesse sees his opportunity as they lean into a sharp right turn. He throws his metal arm out the back window, scrabbling for Storm Bow’s case. A biker rides up close, levels his shotgun, fires. The high _clang_ of shotgun pellets glancing off Jesse’s arm clamors through the cab like angry cymbals. 

Success: Jesse yanks Storm Bow in through the jagged window, leaving it on the seat. He leans into the corner to avoid another resounding shotgun blast. It tears into the upholstery. Hanzo hurriedly throws the case open, assembles himself. His quiver is limited, but it will do. 

The road ramps out with the ground. Jesse and Flores take turns firing briefly out their windows before retreating back inside. 

Hanzo sees it first. The black car hurdling from the off-ramp into a roundabout. 

“Left!” he shouts. 

“I see it,” Gilbert shouts back, gunning it. The truck ramps up straight through the roundabout. One of the bikers tries to follow; his tire catches on the curb, flipping him forwards and snapping his neck in a rough angle against the ground. 

Jesse whistles. “Good one, _amigo_.” 

But the black car is closing in. A window rolls down, giving way to a grumpy-looking submachine gun. 

“Automatic!” Jesse barks, ducking down low as a spray of bullets whizz by. Another window shatters- a crack splinters along the windshield. 

Hanzo kicks his feet out at Jesse. The gunslinger fires blindly once out the window, reloads Peacekeeper, and nods. 

“I gotcha, darlin’.” He hunkers down low and grabs Hanzo by the ankles, squeezing a broad shoulder against Flores’ seat. The archer slowly leverages himself out the window, keeping his upper body still with nothing but abdominal strength. He nocks a Scatter Arrow. 

“Left side,” the captain calls. Gilbert hugs the right side of the road to force the car to the other side. 

Hanzo tenses, stone-still even with hot wind beating against his eyes. The black car rears its ugly hood, the submachine gun steady out the passenger window. Its barrel shines menacingly, a terrible fang in the blistering light. 

He drops his aim to the road just under the car, and fires. 

Every splintering arrowhead hits a hoverpad. The car seizes up and immediately flips onto its head from the dull, panging expulsion of energy underneath. 

“Yeooww!” Jesse crows, slapping his knee in outright jubilance. “That’s _my_ man!” 

Hanzo has no time for reverie. The second the car hit the ground, sparks flying, spinning and choking against hot asphalt, he felt it. As remaining two motorcycles close in, the gaze settles upon him once more. Too many times for a span of two weeks. 

There’s a certain sinister quality to Widowmaker’s bullets as they tear through the wind. Something deeper than just the impending death. There’s a moment of seized time just before she strikes, where suddenly everything is cold. And not the cold Hanzo breathes, glistening with fission temper. This is a dead cold, an agonizing, slowing swath of chill air that reaches into Hanzo’s chest and plucks chords of mortal dread. 

The bigger biker, the one with the shotgun, flaps limp into the asphalt when his head explodes.

“It’s her,” Hanzo grits, scrambling back into the truck. Anxiety tears through the empty hollow of his stomach. “I know it. Stop the truck, turn it around. This is a trap.” Unless she meant for them to turn around. 

Jesse growls instead. “Naw, I’m driving. Scooch over, soldier.” 

But she’s already here. One second, there’s open road. Trees dot one side, highway signs the other. Traffic is visible in the distance, blaring and urgent. 

The next, the hood dents with her presence. She crouches on the white metal, perfectly centered on the Overwatch logo. 

Blue skin unsettling in out-of-place sunlight. Hanzo notices it straight away, though: she is ragged. Heavy, dull-eyed. Dirty. The venom in her eyes has boiled into a frothing, animalistic desperation. There’s something else, too. Does she look manic? Does she look angry? 

Is she scared? 

She’s gone a second later. 

“Turn around, _now,_ ” Hanzo commands. Gilbert swings the truck off onto an exit, makes a lumbering crawl on the overpass, and swings back onto the freeway. Hanzo sees the blockade as they pass; how did Deadlock manage to manipulate the police? A wave of nausea sweeps over him. They might be working with Talon. And if Talon managed to get to the police in the short time since the bar investigation, they’re doubling their efforts. 

No more time to think. She has vanished into the pine, the last biker charging after her, hollering in vengeance. 

“Follow her,” snarls Hanzo, leaning over the back of Gilbert’s seat. The marine lurches the truck forward, but it’s too slow and wide to fit into the trees. 

“We ain’t followin’ on foot, that’s for sure. Deadlock’s a dead man.” McCree sounds hollow. A distaste follows his words. Did he know Amelie? Is it sourness about his mentor? 

Hanzo taps Gilbert’s shoulder. “Switch.” They scuffle, doors opening and closing as the truck idles outside the dense trees. 

“What the _fuck_. She coulda taken us out. What the _fuck_ ,” Jesse mutters with a defeated snarl as they crawl back up toward the Watchpoint. 

“But she didn’t,” breathes Flores, sweat cooling on his panicked face. “Like, what the fuck.” 

“Why was there a blockade,” growls Gilbert. 

Hanzo stops at the wreckage of the last biker. Jesse judges on the sight of him that it’s most assuredly the leader. 

Nausea grips him as he sees the mess of skull and gore. Meters up the road is the wreckage of the burnt car. A half-burnt figure has struggled and failed to get out. Cooked alive, they string out on the grimy tar of the road. 

The heat suddenly overtakes Hanzo, blurring his vision. He coughs, rubbing his irritated throat. Jesse is at his side instantly, arm thrown gently over his shoulder and canteen bestowed to his open arms. 

“Drink, darlin’.” 

Hanzo complies, tipping the canteen upwards and relishing the chest-wide spread of cool sustenance. 

“You been sprayin' on that stuff I gave you an’ all that, right?” 

He scoffs. “Of course. It is still baking hot.” His eye tilts back down toward the body as Flores makes his way back from the car wreckage. He hears Flores confirm there was nothing especially outstanding about the car, but doesn’t process what he says. 

Because in the bloodstained, hand-sewn pocket of a ratty denim vest, a corner of paper just barely pushes up the soaking fabric. White as day, gleaming, almost. As if the sun were pointing to it, urging Hanzo’s eyes toward it. Look. 

A lacy, matte red mandala design wraps around the edge of the paper. Hanzo leans forward and plucks it out of the pocket, making an antagonized face as he goes. 

“What’s wrong, Hanzo?” Jesse says, approaching. 

The archer doesn’t reply. His airway struggles to stay open. His bones have frozen. The more he thinks he has Talon pinned down, the more run-around is thrown in his face. Hanzo gives way to a guttural sigh in exhausted frustration. 

He crumples the card into Jesse’s outstretched hand as he marches toward the truck. “We are going back to the Watchpoint, immediately.” 

***

“Irene’s business card has been on Widowmaker’s only two victims since she’s been in the area,” says Flores. “They have to be colluding.” 

They sit in the laboratory; Hanzo has been trying and failing to get ahold of Winston for the better part of an hour. Gilbert was excused for patrol, leaving Jesse, Flores, and Hanzo to deliberate amongst themselves. 

“But Seventy-Six said that Widowmaker went AWOL,” Hanzo counters, “and, from what I am told, this man does not act on misinformation.” 

“For all we know, his brains went with his eyes,” mutters McCree, chewing tiredly on a cigarillo. 

“It at least proves that Talon provided the barricade for Deadlock,” says Flores. He leans his head on his open palm, eyes drooped. 

“Naw, I don’t think the roadblock was _for_ Deadlock.” Jesse blows a smoke ring into the air. “As in, to benefit ‘em.” 

“Huh? Why else would it be there? What other reason would there be to trap us like that?” Flores straightens inquisitively. 

“That’s what I’m sayin’. They weren’t trappin’ us. They were trappin’ Deadlock.” Jesse leans forward on the table. “Deadlock don’t use police for anything. They would never do that. I don’t think they knew Widowmaker was gonna be there at all. I think they knew they’d been strung-up the second they saw those lights.” He snickers. “None of ‘em got out alive to tell the others, though, is the fucked up thing. That Irene woman’s a fuckin’ mastermind, I tell you. She could piss off the pope.” He points his cigarillo through the air to punctuate, exhaling a sharp cloud simultaneously. 

“Talon used us,” Flores says, as if asking a question. “And Deadlock. And Widowmaker.” 

“They’ve _been_ using us,” Hanzo scathes, “and I want to know for what.” Exasperated, he thumbs the call button on the console again. “And I want to know why the ape isn’t answering the damn phone!” 

“That’s my cue, boss.” Flores yawns. “I did morning patrol. Like, it’s time.” 

Hanzo waves him off. He sags and drags his feet toward the exit door. 

“He’s gotta be busy with somethin’ urgent, darlin’. Let it go.” Jesse places gentle hands on the archer’s shoulders. “Look at me, Hanzo.” 

“I am busy. Bring Vandergild.” 

“Not before you look at me, sweetheart.” 

Hanzo huffs and confronts Jesse’s brown eyes, strained with concern. “What.” 

“Before you come to bed tonight, talk to Torb, eh?” 

“You come at me with this now? I’ll repeat myself: I am busy.” He shoulders Jesse aside, makes for the door.

“Be nasty now,” Jesse says. “But I know you’ll take it serious.” 

Hanzo scoffs into the night air, and rounds the corner. The sullen bite of regret: half a week and he is already taking the gunslinger for granted. For a moment, he considers somewhere in the back of his mind that he should go and apologize immediately; a luxury only considered for the cowboy. 

Tonight, he bites it back and coordinates his team instead. He reminds Vandergild that any discrepancies or occurrences are to be reported to Hanzo directly, as the short-wave will be on. He passes through checklists of new recruits to be stationed at key points inside the Watchpoint with his original team composing the front line. Well past 10:00, he runs drills and disseminates procedural information, striding tirelessly to and fro between team members. He even checks in with stray engineers that need to go over emergency procedures. Anything to avoid the gradually approaching inevitability; the combined guilt and bizarre charismatic thorn in his side will force him to confront Torbjörn. They will both likely be up all night, anyway. Hanzo will indulgently drag it out as far as he possibly can. 

As he finally dismisses the last of his recruits to joint he night patrol, he sees Torbjörn sitting on the bench outside the dorms. The same bench Hanzo first tried to call Jesse on, it faces the same way as the observation deck, out toward the vista of the national forest, edges of trees clashing against crags of resilient mountain rock. Tonight, the moon highlights it with a pearl sheen, eerie and radiant at the same time. 

Hanzo approaches cautiously, exhausted and stupendously unfamiliar with the man to approach him after an argument. The engineer sags against the back of the bench, also marred by emotion and fatigue. 

“Jesse came and talked t’ me,” rumbles the small man as Hanzo steps up within earshot. The archer jumps. “I didn’t really think about it, ya know. Fer some reason, ye just don’t seem all that human t’ me. Maybe it’s the giant dragons.” He slurs. Hanzo eyes the empty bottle on the bench.

“What are you talking about?” The sniper maintains his derisiveness; he is unsure how to proceed. Intimidated by the sudden intimacy, he considers recoiling. 

“Ye lost one ‘a yer flock. I never really gave ye condolences fer that.” He hiccups, breathing out a sigh toward the bold moon. 

Hanzo moves his head to the side and coughs into the wind, dipping in temperature. “Thank you.” 

“Yer gonna see her face in all yer cadets now, ye know. Every time they’re in danger.” A hiccup. “She’ll haunt you. But she’ll make you a better leader.” 

Hanzo doubles back, totally blindsided by the engineering captain’s authenticity. "I see." 

“Y’ see Jack again out there on yer little _errands_ ,” he sneers drunkenly, “ye bring ‘im the fuck back, ye hear?” 

“Understood, you old drunk.” Hanzo turns toward the dorms, standing just a little lighter around the shoulders. 

“The ‘old’ part was unnecessary,” grumbles Torbjörn. 

***

Hanzo enjoys the dull quiet of the landing in the dorms. He droops, tired. Anxious for Jesse (reminding himself to chide his lover for his manipulative trickery). Anxious in general. His chest feels tight as he moves toward the stairs. His foot makes a quiet _pat_ on the linoleum, but Hanzo stops as he notices the lack of an echo. 

The skin stands up on the back of his neck. Something is wrong. He turns toward the doors to the courtyard, listening for Torbjörn. Silence. 

Two things happen as Hanzo advances another step. 

The first, his phone chimes. A text from Winston. He opens it, stares open-mouthed and frozen at the image on his phone screen— 

The second is a bloodcurdling scream that rockets down the empty hallways of the building, grinding vicious and sharp into Hanzo’s ears.


	5. Chapter 5

The luminescent shine of pale moonlight decks the empty hallways between the dense, black shadows of window panes and walls. An unerring, post-scream silence bathes Hanzo in familiar irrational fear as he bolts, urgent and panicked, up a flight of stairs. 

“Stand ready,” he clips into the short-wave. “I am on location.” 

The scream had come from the west wing of the dorms, which prompted a trek up two sets of stairs and down a long hall. Much of the engineering team have made their quarters here. All identical, clinical and militaristic. Sterile, even, now that it’s been cleaned and made to look like a proper base of operations. 

Not the place for a death. 

He hears the voices first; a muted stirring of strained voices clawing over each other. And then, beyond it, the choked sounds of someone crying. The breath hitches in Hanzo’s throat. 

But for the umpteenth time, anxiety just barely loosens its steady grip on Hanzo has he rounds the corner and sees Jesse in front of the bleak light of an open door. Several engineers are crowded around the space, as well. They mull and crane over each other to get a look at Jesse and the room behind him, but break away for Hanzo’s lifted chin and regal gaze. He strides through the commotion with a primordial apprehension. 

In the messy confines of the engineers’ dorm sits a lone woman, sitting on the ground with her head in her hands. Black hair falls around her brown shoulders in wiry, frayed loops. She rocks back and forth, palming her eyes and sobbing breathlessly. 

Hanzo stares rigid, dense with uncertainty; cautiously touched by the small relief that there is no blood or corpse or explosion. 

Jesse walks up to the woman and leans down, bracing her shoulder with a gentle touch. “Hey hey, sweetie,” he murmurs, soft and slow. 

Hanzo folds his arms and stands over the scene. He waves his arms about him, shooing the engineers. “Clear out,” he whispers. They hesitantly obey, shuffling out of the area with concerned double-takes as they trickle. 

“What happened?” Hanzo mouths at Jesse, who shrugs obliviously with his metal arm wrapped around the woman. She sniffles, pauses for a beat, and then visibly suppresses another violent sob. 

“Hey, hey,” Jesse ekes out, rubbing her shoulder circularly with the pad of his thumb. He looks at Hanzo with an air of exasperated concern, then turns back to the collapsed figure. “Well, hey. What’s your name, miss?” 

“A-Ari.” 

“Okay, Ari. Name’s McCree. Good to meet ya.” He grabs her fingers in a firm handshake, smiling with discordant cheer. 

“Nice… to meet you,” she utters quietly between heaving breaths. 

“Why doncha start from square one?” 

Ari wipes her eyes. Under the bleary, running eyeliner and fearful alarm, she must be no older than 25. Hanzo eyes Jesse with an impassioned admiration; the man’s social skills far outmatch his own. McCree rolls in with a smooth drawl and a home-grown smile that could drop a steel barrier. 

“It was in the mirror. He? He was in the mirror, standing behind me. _Ay dios mío_ ,” she rolls her head back and breathes out a forceful exhale, the tears flowing once more. “And he-he just stared at me.” 

“Who, honey? Who was it?” Jesse moves his head to lock eyes with her. 

“I don’t know. A middle-aged black man. There was something…” she stops, sniffs, and seizes with another full sigh of dread. 

Hanzo’s hand wraps instinctively around his phone. Winston’s text drops into the forefront of his mind like a pile of bricks. 

“You gotta keep goin’ if we’re gonna make sure you’re safe,” Jesse soothes. 

She doubles over and forces a big breath out. “Ugh. Sorry. He was just _there_ when I looked up into the mirror.” Another sniff. 

Hanzo eyes a nearby box of tissues and snatches it off her bedside table, passing it down to the terrified woman. 

“Thanks.” She blots her face. “And then he—he just… dissolved, I guess.” 

“Dissolved?” Jesse repeats. 

“Yeah, he turned into misty… stuff. And then the mirror turned black and…” she points. Hanzo follows her finger to her restroom, where the mirror has cracked as if someone had punched it in a fit of rage. 

Hanzo blanches, the disquiet in his stomach bubbling into crippling nausea. “The man,” Hanzo says. “Did he look like this?” He shows her Winston’s text. 

The way the color drains from her face confirms it. The way the control just falls out of her eyes again. Her jaw goes slack in awe. “That’s him.” She takes another squeamish look at the defeated face of the man with round spectacles, staring out of the phone’s glow with a permeable wistfulness. 

She saw him: Hanzo’s apparition. Vision. Whatever he can possibly call it at this point—does he dare say ‘ghost’ and give Jesse the rights to another smug grin? 

“That’s a mite creepy, Ari.” McCree whistles, drops his arm from her shoulder, and nudges her with an amiable elbow. He switches to Spanish: “ _But he can’t do anything now, especially with someone outside your door all night, yeah?_ ” 

“All right, all right,” comes the tipsy mutter of a slumping Torbjörn as he stomps down the hall toward them. “What’s going on?” 

“Ari saw a ghost in the mirror,” says McCree, rushed. Hanzo snaps a sour gaze at him. 

“A ghost,” Torbjörn says, deadpan with a face etched in skepticism. “All this,” a broad sweep of the claw, “fer a ghost.” 

“It broke her mirror, Torb. It’s malicious or somethin’.” 

“I dunno what it was. I can’t sleep here,” Ari decrees in her shaky voice. 

“Ye all can be on yer way, I got this.” He jerks his thumb out the door, shooting a sharp glance at Ari. “Go sleep in Dutch’s quarters like ev’ryone knows ye want to.” 

Ari’s hue changes instantly from a pale tan to rose-red, tucking her arms under her legs. “Okay.” 

The remaining engineers scattered around the hallway retreat back into their respective quarters as the four of them exit Ari’s. The numbness seems alien to Hanzo. He is used to feeling every bit of agony as a thousand tiny mouths picking and scraping at his skin. This discovery kneads at his spirit like a needy cat, edging him toward an unfamiliar sense of disorienting horror. 

“We need to speak with Winston tomorrow,” says Hanzo in passing as Torbjörn shuffles Ari down the hall behind them, presumably toward Dutch’s quarters. 

“Eh,” mutters the inventor, turning sharp down a hall and leaving Jesse and Hanzo to steer toward bed. 

Jesse, ever the easy sleeper, is out the moment his head touches the pillow. In the bathroom, Hanzo stirs in discomfort under the new, silent fluorescent lighting. He fidgets with a straight razor for a few minutes, evening out his facial hair. He brushes his teeth, slips critical eyes over his body. He has grown lax with an exercise routine in his latent business. He frowns; noticeable not even to Jesse, the muscles in his back have started to soften. Chastising himself, glowering into his own eyes, he relents to a tide of debilitation. Tearing his half-expectant gaze away from the mirror, Hanzo flips the light off and curls up to Jesse, sluggish and jaded. 

He square-breathes against Jesse’s bare chest to try and relieve the tension. He fails, even with a steady heartbeat as a metronome. The spectral intruder on top of everything else floods his mind with questions. Ari on the floor proves to Hanzo that the vision wasn’t an internalized event. It can apparently interact with the physical world, too: the image of the broken mirror, his own tired face splintered across its spidery cracks, burns sharp in his mind. Hanzo reserves some space in his thoughts for the possibility of Ari breaking the mirror in a gut reaction, although her hands were untouched. His aimless thoughts wander through the blurred, asynchronous moments at Grand Mesa until he arrives at the central facet. The final piece that causes his faculties to crash down around him: Winston’s message. The clandestine portrait of the glum, bespectacled man with early liver spots and graying hair comes with a caption. 

\---  
[FROM: WINSTON]  
Lúcio got another chunk of those blacked out files  
Just this photo  
Call as soon as possible  
This is a picture of Gérard Lacroix, otherwise known as Widowmaker’s first victim  
\--- 

Rest comes tooth-and-nail. Hanzo slips into the repetitive dream of Genji and the fireflies, visor sharp and menacing in the willow-dappled backdrop. He comes back to it between fitful awakenings; he paces his breathing with Jesse’s soft snores and wraps himself tighter around the mass of warmth to push back against an upset stomach. 

One lapse in the narrative introduces Hanzo to a dream about a tunneling landscape, as if someone had taken Grand Mesa and folded it into a tube around him. The details swim together. Edges and corners of normally sharp fir blur and wane together, the mountains have become a wash of pale brown and tan with no distinct line, no crags or sandy runoffs. No high sun or moon in the sky to sit iridescent on sharp, mountainous teeth. The centerpiece: Gérard shuffles to and fro in his slow, struggling movements, toes of his shoes dragging across pavement. 

WIdowmaker’s first victim. The husband, the leader. Here, at the Watchpoint? Was he involved in Grand Mesa? Was he stationed here? Not possible; Winston would’ve known. Hanzo knows next to nothing about this man, and yet he cannot resist the touch of some engorged sympathy for the way Gérard’s gaunt face reflects such infinite agony retching underneath. Replicating his shuffle into the medbay from the first night Hanzo saw him, he droops, losing his shape, distinct features descending into matte black tendrils of whispering, ghostly viscera that reach out to the archer. They beckon with otherworldly authority, almost prompting Hanzo to move toward them. A bolt of rationalization surges through his body; this is not real. It can’t be. Right? 

_Come._ The tendrils seem to form small hands, writhing and clenching and dripping with sinister acidity as they jut and creak from the swirling black mass at the center. _Come and join your father and mother._ The landscape concaves upwards, unfolding around Hanzo. He watches the mountains settle into their proper places, the Watchpoint taking form around him. 

Gérard is still there, a spectral gyre of pitch darkness. A hole in the world through which Hanzo can see only death. 

_Come._

*** 

Morning. July is ready to pounce upon Grand Mesa, and with it Hanzo’s fortieth birthday. The heat broils just over the horizon. Soon it will sweep over the vista, forcing the blare of the sun to sharpen the air and dull the cool, early wind. 

Hanzo, spurned from sleep, thinks of Jack Morrison as he sits against the railing of the observation deck. Warm tea rests on his tongue for a moment before he swallows. Letting his legs dangle freely over open air, he thinks of the stern echo of command etched into the old man’s features. He thinks of the red sunglasses and the tweed suit. So unassuming, yet so out-of-place. What was the reasoning there? For such a reportedly deliberate person, Hanzo finds himself at a loss when it comes to the logic of his infiltration. Why such a complex plot just to leap up and throw a gun in Irene’s face? Hanzo’s presence hadn’t changed the fact that Jack came armed with a sniper backup. What was he really up to? What _is_ he really up to? For that matter, why hasn’t he made contact? He said he’d be “keeping an eye” on them. The archer snorts inwardly: as if Jack Morrison’s tweed suit could get past Hanzo’s team, Torbjörn, and Jesse’s wild eyes surveying the landscape. 

Speak of the devil: Jesse heaves down next to Hanzo on the observation deck to watch the sun coax out over the wild Colorado mountains. Waxy pine lilts in, coalescing with the bitterness of Hanzo’s tea. Spiced tobacco, too; Jesse lights the first cigarillo of the day, chewing thoughtfully. 

“Hi.” 

“Good morning,” Hanzo replies, distant and quiet. 

“What’re you thinkin’ about?” 

“I am thinking about Seventy-Six,” Hanzo answers into his mug. A breeze comes in, wrapping around Hanzo’s bare arm with an off-putting chill. “We need to find him.” 

Jesse scoots closer, leaning against Hanzo. Easy, dazzling, blowing smoke rings. “So, you ain’t thinkin’ about how me and Genji were right about the ghost?” 

“My father used to say, ‘ _iwanu ga hana_ ’ when Genji’s mouth grew too large for his brains. When you tell him how this conversation went later, you can say that. And,” he puts two preemptive fingers up to Jesse’s open mouth, “you can ask him for the translation, as well.” 

“Shit, Shimada,” laughs Jesse, nosing Hanzo’s tattoo in the morning light, “you know just how to make a clever fella like me feel like he couldn’t find his ass with both hands in his back pockets.” 

“‘Clever,’” Hanzo scoffs, plucking the cigarillo out of Jesse’s mouth and lifting his bearded chin to bring the two briefly lip-to-lip. “I would sooner say _slimy_ ,” he says after they separate. 

“Naw. How ‘bout ‘sly?’” 

Internally, Hanzo concedes: sly is the first thing that comes to mind when someone says ‘Jesse McCree.’ That, and a one-part disorienting, one-part radiating flip of the stomach. 

Outwardly, the sniper spits a subtle laugh. “Sly.” He playfully pushes Jesse’s head away. “ _-me_.” 

“You are beyond mean to me, darlin’,” Jesse mutters in an exaggerated pout, knocking a light elbow into his arm. 

“It is too easy.” 

“Nah, you’re just a bully.” 

Hanzo laughs, more full this time. Robust, shuddering back into the arm Jesse wraps around his shoulders. 

“You got a beautiful laugh, you know. You should try usin’ it when you’re not bein’ an asshole.” Jesse says, grin rounding and smoke crawling off. Picturesque. 

“I am always an asshole.” 

“You’re a fuckin’ kitten.” 

They brush mouths again; Hanzo curls a quick flip of the tongue, pressing hard into his grip. 

“Not that this isn’t the best thing I’ve ever seen my bosses doing,” says a beaming Flores from the ladder behind them, “but Torbjörn is looking for you.” 

Reverie shot down like a plane in flight, Hanzo sets his tea on worn wood, uncurls from Jesse’s arm. He walks over to the ladder. 

“Flores.” 

“Hmm?” A withholding simper. 

“I will tell Vandergild about your dreams if you say anything to the team.” 

“Damn, boss. You drive a hard bargain. Don’t want anyone seeing your soft side?” Flores sports a cheeky smile and a taunting wink now. 

Hanzo sets a delicate foot directly on the top of Flores’ head. “I believe I heard you say you want to ‘climb him like Everest?’” 

“Jesus, okay,” Flores mutters, hurriedly descending with burning cheeks. “You really are cruel.” 

Hanzo shrugs from the top of the ladder. “Familiarize yourself with discretion.” 

Jesse clicks his tongue when Hanzo sits back down next to him. “You knew he was there. Hell, _I,_ knew he was there.” 

“But it was not until I saw his sneering that an issue arose.” 

Jesse shakes his head with a knowing smile, closing his eyes into the rising wind. “You gonna go see Torb?” 

“I am not finished with my tea. And you are not finished with that.” He makes a face at the cigarillo. “You are coming for the meeting?” 

“I was actually gonna join a patrol. See how that Gilbert fella operates outside of smashin’ into shit with a supply truck.” 

“Very well,” says Hanzo. “I need to ask you something.” 

“Shoot, baby.” 

“Did you know her?” Hanzo asks, settling into business. It is time: he must gather as much information as he can possible scramble together from his desolate position at the Watchpoint. No more head-in-hands bewilderment. “Widowmaker?” 

“Hell, I knew Amélie Lacroix a little bit. Don’t know that witch.” Jesse digs a pinkie in his ear, derisively forcing out a cloud of smoke. 

“Tell me about her.” 

“Ain’t much to tell, darlin’. You’re right: we need to find Jack. Plus, ain’t it kinda irrelevant? Lacroix is dead. Widowmaker is a whole different deal.” 

“And yet,” Hanzo snips, raising his mug to his lips again. The morning has begun to grow hotter already, and the tea begins to lose its refreshing quality. “She abandoned an operation in Numbani to come here, where the… visage of the dead husband she murdered stalks our engineers.” 

“Can’t argue that one.” Jesse breathes a dejected sigh. “Look, all I know is she joined Overwatch right after Gérard. Blackwatch didn’t deal with Talon the way Gérard did. We were like two ends of a scissor. Jack was probably afraid we’d glean too much operative stuff of ‘em.” Jesse snorts, shaking his head in nostalgic dejection. “Lena was her best friend. They were coupled like chicken eggs even though all Amélie wanted to talk about was biochemistry. I swear she was speakin’ French when she started talkin’ about that stuff at meetings.” 

“She was a scientist?” 

“Yessir. Gérard was, too. He had some other tricks, don’t know anything about that. Talked to the man maybe three times. He was always at Gibraltar or Beijing.” Jesse taps the ash off the end of his cigarillo. Hanzo watches it drift down toward the ground far below them. He wonders how many defunct bases Overwatch really has. Will he be charged with restoring them all? 

“Tricks?” 

“Yeah. Enough to earn him head of the task force against Talon.” 

With a grimace: “Are you saying Gérard knew how to fight?” 

“Naw, not really. He just knew about Talon in some way. That’s all I got for ya, though. I don’t know anything about her kidnappin’ or brainwashin’ or nothin’. We were down low in Johannesburg during all that stuff. I think that was Johannesburg.” He gives a lighthearted shrug. “Anyway, Reyes and I were in a bunker for all of forty days. When we got back, all the sudden there was a sniper on our asses and Gérard was dead.” 

Hanzo sighs. Not much here. 

“Sorry, honey.” 

“No, it is enough for now. Thank you. I must go for the conference.” He throws back the last of his tea and gives Jesse a fond caress of the scruffy chin before he departs. Amélie the biochemist hangs dull in the back of his mind as he descends the ladder. They had to have been here. They had to have worked on something here. He decrees it, insists it must be true. The most state-of-the-art research institution in the organization? A proper scientist would never miss the chance. 

*** 

Torbjörn stands with Chelsea outside the mess hall as Chi team puts the finishing touches into the equipment and upholstery. Hanzo approaches in the growing heat, watching Chelsea slowly sway one way, then the other in the light breeze. One sun-cast silhouette stands on the roof of the building with two others bent over some sort of shaft, gate hanging open and over the side of the wall. A team of two engineers is pallet-jacking a grill out of the supply entrance. 

“Not that one!” Torbjörn spits, angrily raising his fist in their direction. They stop, turn around, and shuffle back inside, sheepish. “Th’ green sticker means Beta can fix it! Sheesh, ’s like these people don’t understand a word o’ English.” 

“I understand you wanted to speak with me,” says Hanzo from behind him. 

“I did, but now I want to finish this damn cafeteria.” Torbjörn strokes his whiskers. “About time we get finished.” 

“I can take over here, Mr. Lindholm,” says Chelsea. She still appears destroyed. Her eyes have taken on a full, reddish flair and her round face has sagged even further. The bags under her eyes are visible beneath dirty glasses. She holds a rolled up blueprint in one hand and a hefty toolbox with the other. The husky woman, standing even shorter than Hanzo, is stronger than she looks. 

“I keep tellin’ ye to get some sleep. I don’t even know why yer still here. Git.” 

“Winston has ordered to call as soon as possible,” Hanzo interjects. 

“I’m fine, I promise. I can do this,” pleads Chelsea. 

“Then call ‘im,” Torbjörn says, indignant. 

“Do you not have time for the Watchpoint’s affairs?” Hanzo becomes standoffish, leaning backwards. 

“Mr. Lindholm,” Chelsea begins. 

Torbjörn cuts her off with a terse thrust of his claw. “I’ll tell ye what I have time for, Shimada.” he exhales, sharp, and glowers up at his co-commander. 

“Torbjörn,” says Chelsea, a sharp edge of urgency in her voice. 

“I have time t’ fix all the corroded circuit breakers on the Watchpoint, I have time t’ supervise Alpha activating the turrets to make sure they don’t shoot their fresh little green eyes out, and then I have time t’ eat the dinner of a pre-packed nutrition capsule because yer team still hasn’t done a supply run. Ye need to talk to Winston, go ahead. Ye can fill me on the details later.” 

“Fine.” Hanzo turns, the rage that clawed at him in prior weeks having trickled back down to the minor (but irresistible) notes of irritation in the air. 

“Listen to me!” Chelsea finally yells, throwing the blueprints to the ground. 

Torbjörn spins on her, a mixture of surprise and chagrin in his step. “Are ye right in the head?” 

“We have been picking away at this mess hall for two weeks,” says Chelsea, pulling on the sides her face. She aggresses, locking eyes with her superior and moving in with a driveling scowl. “The medbay hasn’t been so much as _touched_. And here we are, wasting our fucking time on this piece of shit.” 

“If I see ye anywhere outside yer quarters for the next twelve hours, Mrs. Begay, I’ll have ye in a demotion before ye can do a pirouette on those stubby legs o’ yers,” Torbjörn snarls. He leans in Hanzo’s direction, eyeing him from a corner in exacerbated impatience. “Why are ye still here?” 

Hanzo gives a derisive roll of the eyes and begins to step away. 

He then sees a rushed movement in the corner of his eye. Loud metal against concrete suddenly has Torbjörn jumping and wheeling again. 

Toolbox dropped, various tools spread from the unhinged latch, Chelsea has swayed into a wide, heavy stance with a two-handed wrench clutched in her trembling hands. 

“Chels—” 

She takes a wild swing directly for Torbjörn’s temple. 

Hanzo moves. Cutting like an arrow through the air, his hand latches to Chelsea’s wrist. He spins her around, forces her over her own feet, and shoots her to the ground. 

“Th’ _hell_?” Torbjörn rushes to her side, bending over and scanning her face. 

Hanzo pins her arms behind her back, barking for Christen immediately on the short-wave. 

“If we don’t get in the fucking medbay,” Chelsea is screaming under Hanzo’s grip, writhing on the hard slate, “we’re all going to die! We’re all going to die!” She sounds feral, frothing, spewing visceral splatters of saliva as she rolls against the ground. Her voice, normally soft and reserved, has taken on the edge of a rusty saw blade, echoing raw back and forth against a chunk of hollow wood. 

“What does she mean? What is wrong with her?” 

“Don’t know. She won’t leave me alone about th’ medbay and won’t get any rest. Second time she’s broken down. First time she tried t’ bludgeon me, though.” 

Gérard glides satanic into Hanzo’s thoughts, a wave of remorse and dread seeping through gritted teeth. The way he dragged his entire being, molecule by molecule, in the most agonizing motion Hanzo has ever seen, into the dilapidated medbay burns hot like a fuse inside the archer. 

“Check,” says Christen over the radio. “Sorry, nature calls.” 

“Just hurry,” he snaps, tucking away the short-wave. 

Torbjörn checks her over again, trying to get a good look at her face. She suddenly stops moving, limp, eyes pressed shut hard as if she were trying to forget something. Chelsea shudders with a hysterical giggle against sun-bathed concrete. The wheezing of her stuttered breaths spreads a needling anxiety through the air. 

“I am going to get off of you,” says Hanzo. “I will have no qualms about rending you unconscious if you try to move again.” A steadfast promise hissed into her ear. 

Hesitantly, he takes all his presence off her, and moves to his feet. She remains, cheek against the ground, glasses pressed up at an awkward angle. Her hoarse breathing mixes with the twisted smile etched into the corner of her mouth and forces Hanzo’s eyes away. 

The shambling figure of Christen, coveralls too big, stumbles up to the huddled trio in the midst of the mess hall renovation. Engineers have started to pay attention; Torbjörn turns from his crouched position with a furious look and growls loudly at them to keep moving. 

“We gotta get her out of here before m’ team starts rubbernecking.” 

“She is having some kind of episode. Assist me,” Hanzo orders, scooping one arm under Chelsea, who shudders at his touch and coughs into the dust. 

“Let go of me.” 

The combined efforts of Christen, Hanzo, and Torbjörn successfully wrestle Chelsea to her quarters. She struggles against them the entire time, prompting curious and concerned looks from the engineering team as they make their way. They throw her on the bed; Christen takes her vitals while Hanzo holds her down. 

The doctor chalks it up to a lack of sleep, manages to get Chelsea mildly sedated. Immediately she falls into a heavy sleep. Hesitantly, Torbjörn leaves, promising intermittent visits as he tries to put final wraps on the mess hall. Hanzo dismisses Christen and has Murray stay with her as he strides, cold and focused, out of her quarters. 

The event plays on a loop uncontrollably in the corner of Hanzo’s vision as he marches back to the courtyard outside the mess hall. The hulking toolbox is still there, along with the double-handed wrench. He pads up to it, the frustration coming to a head as he grabs the crowbar sticking haphazard out of the open latch. 

He continues: through the alley between the mess hall and the dorms, the glare of the sun splitting off the sweat of his stiff movements, bright and reflective. Right up to the double medbay doors he stomps, urgent snares of the wrist prompt his hands to wrap tightly around the crowbar. He jams it in, sinking the throttle of his anger into the sound of groaning metal. Trained, muscular arms strain as he pushes on the bar. 

It doesn’t budge. He sputters an agonized groan as he struggles harder, angrier, more panicked on the door. With a final shout of surging strength, he forces door’s creak to crescendo into a hollow squeal, trembling in its frame. Blackened windows rattle with the vibraneous motion of Hanzo wiggling the crowbar up and down in desperation. 

Nothing. He yanks the crowbar out of the door’s wedge and casts it aside. Fury takes the form of a shambling, humanoid figure of freezing darkness. It perches on Hanzo’s shoulder and hisses profanities into his ear as he sinks a loud fist into the metal of the door. It remains there as Hanzo twitches through the day, Winston’s call falling by the wayside as he thrusts himself into ha daily routine. 

Despite his attempts to distract himself with vapid busywork, absently joining a few patrols while Murray watches Chelsea, the sniper cannot shake the implicit connection in the back of his mind. Chelsea’s obsession with the medbay and Hanzo’s vision of it, they connect with no visible materials to link them, almost automatic. Chelsea’s twisted grip on the wrench and her wretched fury as she sprung at her superior drapes in front of the listless captain’s eyes as a velvet curtain. Her expression was what forced it on him. The same soft face, ravaged from sleepless horror. He knew it well now. Burnt like lightning into his mind was the face of Gérard. Not just the face of fatigue or sickness or alcoholism. The face of torment. The face of silent suffering, isolation. 

The face of guilt. 

The dread seeps into his skull like slick water in a storm. He feels copper against frozen rain, every drop resonating vivid and sharp through his body. Despite his efforts, his iron grip on his team, the rugged obelisk of heat and hospitality having finally reentered his life, things at their core have not changed. 

He still knows nothing. He is still failing them. Hanzo mires in this mindset, leading a few patrols and absently planning a supply run, which Jesse will lead while the archer focuses on his investigation. He stews in his stuffy quarters, trying to think through it all: Irene and Widowmaker, Talon and Deadlock, Jack and his sniper, Gérard and Chelsea. Reasoning, trying to elect most believable and realistic theories, throwing his head back in expulsed frustration when he realizes he simply doesn’t have enough facts. Irene sits at the center of it. She has the most information. This much Hanzo recognizes: he clings to it as a landmark from which he can survey the possibilities. Standing tall and dignified in the center of her smut dungeon. Unafraid of Jack Morrison. Deadly and witty. 

She and Widowmaker are the keys. Hanzo slips into the realization as evening cranks the hues from a sweltering day to a smoldering sunset. Jesse has come and gone once, seen the look on his face, touched a finger to Hanzo’s shoulder, asked after him. Receiving a shortened response and a no-thank-you, he gives a feathery rub of the palm and departs without another word. A tablet with all his markings, thoughts, a map of relations (Amélie and Gérard Lacroix at the center of it) glows from its resting place in his outstretched hand for what must be hours. The Talon operatives that have played him from the start have the answers. And he will take them from whoever dares to come across his line of sight first. 

*** 

It is dusk when Hanzo finally stands solitary in the research lab with arms crossed to a stoic chest. The electronic blue light from the call screen erases Hanzo’s features, melding him in a flat sheet of indigo. 

The day, the month, has taxed him. The lack of a break is visible in his eyes, devoid of light or heat. A repetitive, unintentional flash of thought: he feels as though he might follow the same path as Chelsea if this continues. In the hours since her episode, she has awoken to a prostrating demotion and a roaring reprimand from Torbjörn. Christen has recommended another day of rest. 

Winston answers faster than Hanzo thought, forcing a surprised blink. 

“Hey, Hanzo.” The gorilla looks curiously around Hanzo. “Where’s everyone else?” 

“Jesse is, as he says, ‘shooting shit’ with my team in what I assume is some drinking game. Torbjörn is… Torbjörn.” Hanzo sighs and yawns. 

Winston looks on concernedly. “Okay, well did you get my messages?” 

“Yes. We’ve had some minor issues today. Internally.” Hanzo slaps the last part on the end, not wanting to step around the issue any further. No, it is time to gather facts: “Gérard Lacroix was here?” 

“Uh, no,” Winston says, clearing his throat with a guttural harrumph. “Not according to any official records. I can’t find anything connecting _either_ of the Lacroixes to Watchpoint: Grand Mesa.” 

“But obviously there is something.” 

“Yeah, and it was probably in the administrative complex,” huffs the commander, reluctantly putting his tablet down. “We pulled those files dry. There’s nothing else in the database. Blackwatch didn’t have anything, either. We have requested a look at the UN’s information, but that could take weeks.” 

“That is ages too long.” 

“I’m aware, but there’s very much past nothing I can do about that,” Winston replies around a nervous laugh. “Why do I feel like I’m the one on trial here?” 

“Are you suggesting that I should be on trial?” Hanzo says, tilting his head. He dares his commander to make another mess out of a conference. He is tired of games. There is no more room for hierarchy. Just results. 

“I still haven’t responded to your insubordination, Hanzo.” Winston is firm now, a low growl surging subtle under his breath. 

“Very well,” Hanzo says, exhaling through his nostrils. “But first I would like to point out that you did not answer when I called last night, and you have not asked for my report of the Grand Junction mission.” 

“I already know how that went. Uh, Jesse texted me. Like you should be texting me. I’m busy, Hanzo. That’s kinda why I schedule these on a biweekly basis.” 

“I prefer to give my reports in person, or as close to in-person as I can attain. Text messages are not a proper substitute.” Scorn steams from the edges of Hanzo’s words. 

“I think you’ll probably have to find a way to move past that. Either way, I have a follow-up plan.” 

“I do, as well.” 

“Jesse needs to find Jack and the sniper as well as investigate Deadlock's ties to Talon. You need to do your job of defending the Watchpoint, which means staying there and doing supply runs.” 

Rigorously suppressing a balk, Hanzo shakes under the pulsing tremors in his spine. “I…” 

“Listen—” 

“I want to ask you to give me everything you have on Amélie Lacroix and her husband.” 

“What? Hanzo, I know that sucks and you just got back together and everything, but…” Winston tiptoes, totally thrown by Hanzo’s deflection. 

Hanzo presses. He turns, figuratively, a blind eye. He dodges Winston’s command as if looking straight at it will finally break him. “Did you know them? Did you work with them? You are all scientists, yes?” 

“O-one thing at a time, Hanzo,” Winston deflects back. “We need to talk about a plan of action.” 

“My plan of action is ‘get into the hospital and get more information.’ You cannot help me get into the medbay. But you do have information.” Flat, directional. Pointed, even. A stone-cold refusal to let the conversation go in Winston’s direction. 

"Yes," Winston finally concedes, tabling the discussion of Jesse with a hesitant sigh. "I knew them." 

"What were they like?" 

"You mean, together?" the scientist scratches his head. "Uh, they were pretty normal. I guess. Gérard was this headstrong, super passionate guy. He really wanted to make the world a better place. Amélie wanted to know everything. It was kind of a symbiotic thing, I think." 

"They were both from France?" 

"Yeah, Amélie was from Aix-en and Gérard came from Paris. The Lacroixes were a big part of Omnica pre-Crisis, so that probably had to do with him joining Overwatch. I'll send you all that stuff." 

"Please," says Hanzo. The thought of an idealistic Amélie doting toward an ambitious Gérard seemed somehow fitting. Hanzo wonders how someone like the person Winston describes becomes someone in the photograph he sent. Maliciously, he thinks to himself he knows very well how someone deteriorates that way. 

"Amélie and Lena were best friends. Maybe you should ask her about them. Maybe you should ask Jack," Winston says. 

The untouched subject. The air of accusation in the gorilla's voice prompts Hanzo: "I intend to, I assure you." 

"Gérard was brilliant. He knew how to get me signed on to a project when the rest of our staff felt like they had to use peanut butter to bribe me. I mean, it worked, but... You know. A little demeaning, I guess." He shuffles, laughs a little, then coughs to carry on. 

"Jesse said he knew about Talon." 

"Yeah, he was actually a member of Talon before they, you know." He made an explosion gesture with his hands. 

"I do not know. He was a terrorist?" Hanzo edges through confusion. 

"No no," Winston snorts. "Sorry. Before Talon was a terrorist organization, they were an activist group made of environmental scientists. Pre-Crisis, they stood for working around the harmful ways with which we treated the environment. I guess we still kinda do." A wistfulness gusts through Winston, visible as he takes off his glasses and peers nostalgic through the call screen. "He was a big part of them post-crisis. He always said he saw the hatred infected their ranks, so he left. Before you know it, they had blown up an Omnium in Belgium. That was the start of that." 

"How did Gérard respond?" 

"The same way the rest of us did. Voting on a task force. He headed it, claiming to know that some of their members could be like, rehabbed or something. I was super fresh back then. All I wanted to do was finish the Chronal Accelerator." 

"Who else was on this task force?" 

"A bunch of randos, or at least randos to me. Gérard and Jack spearheaded it together. I just uh, stayed in my lab." 

"Did the task force have any relevance to Grand Mesa?" 

"Not officially. But here's the thing," Winston says. He grows conspiratorial, leaning into the camera. Hanzo makes a face at the irony. "The UN was against the idea of a task force. They didn't think Overwatch should respond to Talon at all. Don't you think that's bizarre? They kept us around just for that kind of thing. And then before you know it, they were mandating operations for the task force." The nostalgia returns to Winston's eyes as he reframes his glasses and ducks from view to drink water. He swallows, and shakes his head. "Reyes used to use it as a point to justify Blackwatch's ops. If there's anything to connect Gérard to Grand Mesa, I feel like they have it." 

"But you said they would not hand it over easily." Hanzo unfolds his arms, placing flat palms on the desk in front of him. 

"No, but I will work on that. Hanzo, we have to talk about—" 

"And Amélie's kidnapping?" 

"Oh," Winston blinks through a surprised tremble. "That." 

"That," Hanzo repeats, derision a faint echo in his throat. 

"Well, Gérard's task force worked. Whatever they were doing, Talon activity became suppressed. You gotta remember, this was before we got shut down. In the eight years since, they've tripled in influential power and stuff." A grumble, an unrepetant choke of bitterness. "They got mad. Like, really mad. They released a statement saying they were going to crush Overwatch from within. Gérard was in Beijing at the time. I remember," a sad chortle, "Jack was losing his mind because he couldn't get ahold of Gérard. Actually, yeah." Winston scratches his chin thoughtfully. "Yeah, I remember Amélie was sick at the time, too. Like, really sick. She was in Beijing as well, but she flew home to France because she was getting really frail and wanted to spend time with her family. Not that she was like, dying or something. I thought, anyway. 

"This is all secondhand from Lena." He waves his hand over his face. "She never touched ground in Gibraltar during those few weeks. And then, en route to France, she vanished. Gérard flipped out, started looking more like that picture I sent. And then he led the operation to get her out. I didn't even know he could shoot, but the case file—which I just sent you—says he went along. They took her out, and then a week later, Gérard was dead. Never saw either of them for months before that." 

Hanzo stops to rest his chin on his forefinger. The events seemed to disconnected: her sickness, her disappearance, Gérard's response. As if they'd happened in varying contexts as opposed to the setup and result of a kidnapping. 

"This story is verified?" he asks, stroking his beard once. 

"Yeah, by Jack himself. Why?" Winston cranes his head. 

Hanzo pauses for a beat, considering his words carefully. "It does not feel right." 

"You know," Winston leans back toes peeking up from underneath the table. He stretches his arms over his head. "You're kinda right. That he sent her from Beijing by herself when she was sick always seemed weird to me. But wait—" he leans forward again, "—are you saying Jack lied about stuff?" 

"I am wondering if maybe there were multiple omissions or collusions," Hanzo says, biting back the word "lies." The idea of Overwatch as a pristine, heroic organization with the magnanimous Jack Morrison as its clandestine head never sat right with Hanzo. He is all too willing to accept the concept of conspiracy around and within the poster boy for justice. 

"I'll give it some thought. I'm about to pass out sitting up straight, though. Hanzo, I've already given Jesse the order. He'll break away from the next supply run to do a run-through on Grand Junction, and also head down into Delta for a few days." 

Hanzo thumbs the red hang-up button with a flash of the hand. The anxiety returns to his trembling arms as the outside silence weighs down on him as a shade of discomfort. He pushes it down with all his mental strength, screwing his mouth into a taught frown. Like a hydraulic press crushing a wad of papery trash, he neglects the anxious dread, compacting and locking it. 

He steps out into the night, searching in an almost panicked fashion for Jesse. Nearly twenty-four hours since the revelation about Gérard and the sighting of the ghost. Hanzo has not asked after Ari, and it dawns on him that he simply doesn’t have room to care for anyone else right now. He falls apart into his own hands when Jesse is nowhere to be found. The quarters, the guard railing at the main gate, with Flores and Murray as they down a rationed fifth of old Maker's Mark. None of these things hold what he needs, and so he stumbles. 

He pauses to consider: has the gunslinger already left? Has he started the mission early? At nine PM? Irrational, spikes the voice of reason small in the back of his mind. But the thought remains, hovering above in the grim moon bearing down on him in the same eerie light from the night before. He braces himself against the cooling metal of the supply gate, watching the stars. His eyes scan the orange safety paint, pausing on a black shape resting at the gate's latch— 

"Heyyy, Hanzooooo," slurs Jesse from the short-wave. "Sorry, heard you were lookin' for me. Join me at our spot from this mornin'." 

One might imagine a wave of relief cresting at Hanzo's watering eyes. But it doesn't come. No reverie tonight; only crippling awe. 

Because, plain in the moonlight, affixed to the front of the supply gate, shadows cast over its pearl-white features, is the skull of a barn owl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tentatively added the final number of chapters, may update as I flesh out the other details of the story. 
> 
> I know this one was very dense. More action to come. 
> 
> So you don't have to google it (unless you already did) Hanzo is mimicking a proverb that essentially means "silence is golden" during his talk with McCree. What a sasshole.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: We have a triple-whammy of drug references, hefty violence, and sexual content in this chapter. You're welcome??
> 
> \-----

Just when Hanzo thought he couldn’t get any sweatier even under the lightest fabric he owns, Grand Mesa blooms outright blistering into July. The sun fearlessly attacks everything now, bleaching cheap curtains, coaxing pools of moisture out of hard-working engineers. Sentries assigned to stand in white coveralls stoically form marble statues across the guard railings of the Watchpoint. From a distance, they look like stone arbiters, waiting for the chance to spring to life and defend their home. Up close, one can see the darkened, yellowed spots of their uniforms where the sweat just surges through. 

The thermostat reads 108 degrees as Hanzo steps out from a cold shower and spits a stray strand of toothpaste into the sink. Toweling off, he palms the door open to see Jesse’s bare body in bed with a pillow attached to his face. Sunlight streaks over his chest from the open window, illuminating thick musculature. Sun-baked skin, thatched with coarse hair, spreads silky into the cheap sheets gathered at his waist. Hanzo stands, leg cocked, drinking in the sight of his lover grumbling hoarse breaths into the pillow, stunted with a hangover. He pushes gently on the pillow, letting the towel fall around his feet. Jesse groans in response. 

“Good morning,” says the archer, smiling through pearly-white teeth. He licks his canine and bends down, delicately lifting the pillow up with one finger. 

“No,” Jesse says, pressing the pillow close and forcing Hanzo’s finger downwards. “I ain’t proper for your eyes.” 

“I will decide that,” breathes Hanzo, clenching a fist into the pillow and throwing it off of his face. 

Here rests the drunken cowboy: red and puffy, eyes swirling with an obvious headache. Skin pale and clammy, almost green from the nausea that must be churning in his bowels. Hair thrown wildly in various spools, oily and stringy. He tries to crane away from Hanzo, turning into his pillow, but the sniper rests a hand soft on his cheek. 

“You are handsome as always, Jesse.” Velvet, soft whispering directly into Jesse’s ear. “How are you feeling?” 

“Like I been strapped to a train track since Wednesday.” 

“That is unfortunate.” Fingers trace Jesse’s collarbone, dipping into the soft flesh of his neck as Hanzo settles next to him, legs tangling together. 

“Thanks, but I did it to myself, ya know.” A secondary grumble. McCree reaches for his face-pillow. Hanzo toes it off the edge of the bed, letting it hit the hard flooring with a soft _whump_.

“I meant, unfortunate for me.” 

“Why’s that, sweet pea?” 

Hanzo takes a second to lean in close again, resting his wandering fingers against the pleasing tuft of beard against the gunslinger’s cheek. 

Lips parted a centimeter away from Jesse’s earlobe: “Because I am hard as a rock.” 

A blush flourishes across Jesse’s face. A calloused hand crawls weakly to Hanzo’s inner thigh, testing. _You lyin’?_

He is not. 

Jesse groans louder this time, rolling over into a fetal position. Hanzo reaches over, kneads knowing fingers into the muscles of his back. One hand appreciative. The other entwined in a rough massage, fingering pressure points and stroking the back of the neck soothingly. Jesse the ever-indulgent puffs a sweeping inhale of relief as Hanzo prods. He leans into the touch, scooting so that his back is flush with Hanzo’s elbows. 

Eventually, his fingers grow tired, and he presses his cheek against warm, toned back muscles. He laces his fingers together around McCree’s abdomen, stroking the hair there, and pressing close. 

“There anything _harder_ ‘n a rock?” comes the the slur as Jesse’s rump twitches against Hanzo’s crotch. “I reckon you’re at that uh… juncture. If there was one.” 

No response comes from Hanzo except the ply of his fingers up Jesse’s solar plexus and into the territory of his breast. 

“Lemme take care of ya,” Jesse says, attempting to turn around to face the archer. 

Hanzo grips tight, unmoving. “Later. You are sick.” 

“I ain’t gonna puke all over… well, I might.” 

“Later,” he repeats, frowning into heated skin. “We have things to do. Go and shower.” Hesitant. Hanzo knew this was a pocket of time that would eventually come to an end. Nevertheless, he reluctantly removes the band-aid holding the dam closed, watching Jesse’s bare figure cross the room, stretching strong arms over his head. 

He dresses, ties the scarf into his hair. He wears a sky blue one today, off-tenor slightly with the dull jade of his _gi_. 10:00 AM. The big supply run, and Jesse’s inevitable departure, looms in his mind as he stares at the dinky clock on the nightstand. 

Having slept on it, less hysterical and less exhausted, Hanzo realizes the truth to Winston’s words. Jesse works best in the shadows, solo, and he knows this area blindfolded. To maximize efficiency, Jesse will be out on foot for only five days. It’s the same as a mission back at Gibraltar. 

And yet, despite his self-reassurance, he struggles to cope with the vague unease that has gripped him since he arrived here. Guilt swells also when Hanzo chokes down his rough hang-up on Winston and his wide eyes as he searched the compound for McCree, lurching urgently around the Watchpoint in an irrational fugue state.

And then the refugee alleviation on his brow when he climbed the observation deck and found his lover piss drunk and swaying cheerily on the open breeze. How quickly the owl skull faded from his mind when he looked into the unfocused eyes of the puffy gunslinger. Touched his cheek, lost in the haze of alcohol on his lips. The smell of it on his breath almost gagged Hanzo—he shudders sickly as Jesse clamors around in the bathroom. It forced his hands off the bulge he was palming and put a stop to the cowboy’s languid finger down the back of his trousers. He wonders if maybe he didn’t miss the dizzy burn on his tongue as much as he thought he did. 

***

Two months into the Watchpoint rehabilitation project, and all the team has to show for it is the crumbling remains of an administrative complex and a (admittedly substantial) costly renovation of the mess hall. Torbjörn has also overseen the implementation and proper rewiring of the defense system, including cameras, turrets—Hanzo observes the glossy red paint and mechanical whirring with a note of aesthetic leeriness.

The mess hall has been completely reupholstered and retiled and all kitchen appliances have been fixed or will be replaced come this supply run. Hanzo (simmering with unabashed hatred for the temperature) and Jesse take a quick tour of it with Torbjörn before they head out on the supply run. Their eyes meet polished white tile laden with circular tables and cushioned orange benches. A marble countertop runs parallel to an observable kitchen line, complete with orange deco stools and an old-fashioned jukebox (Hanzo sighs begrudgingly fond when McCree gushes over its neon presence). With seating for fifty people and faculties to feed all of them, Hanzo estimates it’ll be a long while until the facility is used to its fullest potential. 

From the mess hall, they cross the dorm courtyards and the lab toward the main gate. As they pass by an open window, Chelsea sits in a chair across from a few other engineers as they draft a plan on a nearby whiteboard. She still doesn’t sit up straight, and leans her head against a propped elbow. Her face has softened noticeably; though it appears she hasn’t gotten any since, the sleep she obtained with Christen’s help seems to have done her a lot of good. She doesn’t make eye contact. Hanzo realizes, tearing his gaze away from the uncomfortable sight, that Ari is one of the other engineers in the room. She waves weakly at Jesse as he walks by. He tips his hat and winks, cigarillo dangling haphazard from simpering lips. 

“She’s a nice girl,” he says over an exhale. 

“She looks it.” Flat and distant. 

“You all right, sweetheart?” He turns to a sidestep to look Hanzo over, ashing the cigarillo with an outstretched metal hand. 

“Yes.” He bores his eyes into the ground, simmering and melting under the gunslinger’s gaze. Is this really all he has to do to get at him now? _Look_ at him? Weaker: “I do not want you to leave.” 

“Aw, it’ll pass by like, uh,” he fiddles to get the cigarillo back between his teeth so he can snap his fingers. “Uh, that. Don’t you worry your pretty mind, I’ll be back in two shakes of a hornet’s nest.” 

“That southernism might be the most nonsensical I’ve ever heard.” Despite his teasing, Hanzo indulges in the baked earth of Jesse’s eyes for a few solid seconds, catching the gunslinger off-guard.

“Says you, Mister Flowers-Do-Not-Speak.” He gives the whole show, including air quotes and a sarcastic tilt of the head. “‘Course they don’t speak. They’re flowers.” 

They come to the main gate. The supply truck waits on the other side, painted over with inconspicuous beige and only two windows repaired. It sits nonchalant on wheezing blue hoverpads as Carlson idles the engine. In the passenger seat, Vandergild takes a hearty swig from a canteen and then shuffles his feet in mild anticipation. 

Hanzo hefts Storm Bow’s case into the back of the truck and then clambers in after it. Jesse shoots him a quizzical look, to which he lifts his chin and says, “It is best to be prepared.” 

The gunslinger gives a shrug and climbs up to sit next to Hanzo, leaning against his compact frame, arm hanging easily over his shoulder. 

With almost feverish jubilation, Hanzo welcomes the strong breeze on his face, lifting his scarf as the truck rumbles down the highway. Jesse keeps a metal hand attached to his Stetson, leaving the other arm around Hanzo’s shoulders. Here, in a tunnel of wind, Hanzo relishes the embrace, lets it warm his spirit. He lets Jesse’s presence wash the dread away. Perhaps it’s the ever-increasing distance from the Watchpoint that gives Hanzo pause to sort out time. His thoughts gather themselves here without any prodding or poking. He takes in the smell of heated foliage and summer wind with the trees blurring by in a melting swatch of healthy green. 

No Deadlock today. No motorcycle ambushes, no police barricades. Just an empty county road that spills over into an equally empty highway, curtains of hot air sweeping back and forth across wide asphalt. Hanzo makes a point to enjoy it while he can with McCree at his side, and so he leans his head into the cowboy’s shoulder, closing his eyes into the deafening wind. 

***

The depot containing the appliances is located further into the industrial section of the city than Hanzo has ever been. They brush past neon markers as the buildings grow denser and the people, too. Visages of sun-speckled children dash madly across dirty streets, chasing each other with fervent ignorance of the world around them. Street vendors haughtily throw meat over open flame and croon at passers by to try their morsels or their souvenirs. Facades begin to cut the sky into jagged, squared edges, apartment housing looming up over them. Thin, blue telescreens are replaced with ticking news drones that bumble around with a clumsy aimlessness. 

The depot is situated on a busy street corner where, as Hanzo bitterly grits over, it is apparently acceptable to just walk in the middle of the street. Long-faced victims of city heat shuffle across the square in a rhythmic lumber. Vandergild and Carlson greet an employee that provides a ratty, hovering pallet jack with a (discordantly) polished-looking dishwashing unit.

Boxes of unidentifiable items come out of the depot also. Torbjörn already pre-ordered the parts, now Vandergild gets to heave enormous crates of metallic shapes into the back of the truck with a resounding _slam_. Hanzo and Jesse stand to the side, watching Grand Junction busy itself with the baubles of everyday life. The bustle is more digestible now. The gradual hurry of the crowd becomes more apparent as time goes on, as one gets used to the blaring noise and the unstimulating heat. 

“Don’t think I ever did lead one of these lives,” Jesse muses over another cigarillo. 

Hanzo settles a brooding gaze on a woman pushing a stroller, ice cream cone melting over her oblivious hand. “How do you mean?” 

“Look at all these people,” he says, gesturing broadly over the populated scene before them. He pauses to help Carlson with the tailgate, then walks back over to Hanzo. “They’re just… goin’ about their business. Even as a kid I didn’t go more ‘n a week without beatin’ somebody up.” 

Hanzo furrows his brow at the other man. “You were a bully?” 

“Naw,” Jesse says, “I was just the only half-gringo in a room fulla brown kids or the only half-brown kid in a room fulla whities. Had to scrap more than a few times to keep my head above water.” He wrinkles his nose. “Why’d I bring this up? Change the subject.” 

“The only person who regularly antagonized me in my formative years was Genji.” 

Jesse barks a coarse laugh, bending over slightly and gripping his temple. He’s still hungover, Hanzo realizes. He cleans up well; the shower had Jesse looking like he hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol the night before. 

“I reckon that never changed,” Jesse says, “an’ I’ll bet you did your fair share of antagonizin’ too, honey.” 

He hardens, twitching cold into the gaze of the city rush. “I was mostly a very temperate older brother.”

Jesse steps around the elephant. “I’ma have to have you prove that, Mr. Shimada.” 

“I put up with your nonsense, do I not?” 

A derisive scoff and a roguish grin: “Barely.” 

“Let us make ourselves useful.” Hanzo thrusts his phone and a list scrawled in neat, nuanced handwriting into Jesse’s hand. “Call the surplus and place our food order.” He looks over at Carlson, who flashes a thumbs up. To the background of Jesse drawling into the phone, Hanzo looks over the heads bobbing up and down in the din of the lunch rush. Hunger gnaws at his guts. 

Vandergild, on the same wavelength, makes a patting motion on his bulging stomach after heaving a third crate into the truck. “Lunch break,” he rumbles, leaning against the hot metal.

“We will get food.” He gestures between himself and Jesse. “Keep loading.” 

“Yes sir, very good sir,” Carlson says in a terribly reductive British accent. 

Jesse hangs up the phone and palms it over to Hanzo, finger-gunning. Mission Complete. 

“Food,” mutters Hanzo, pulling weakly on the serape. 

“I’m glad you asked, darlin’. I know just the place.” He brushes his fingers against Hanzo’s wrist and moves off toward a side street, jerking his head for Hanzo to follow. The gunslinger leads him down an alley completely shadowed by the buildings it rests between and emerge to a contrasted sunny market street. Stalls offering ice-cold beverages and dive-y restaurants line colorfully flag-woven, compact street corners trembling with ongoing citizenry. 

“Where are you taking me,” gruffs Hanzo. 

“I told ya I was gonna show ya stuff. Real nice stuff.” 

“Somehow ‘real nice stuff’ does not come to mind here,” Hanzo says over the smell of overcooked meat and spicy alcohol. 

“Trust me.” And, by heavenly chorus, Hanzo does. He thinks he might let Jesse lead him through hell if he thought it meant coming out the other side. “You didn’t eat at the Watchpoint, right?” 

“I had a supplement bar.” 

“Good, okay, this’s gonna knock yer socks off.” 

“You are excited.” A diagnosis. Jesse’s eyes are wide, nostrils flaring to take in the scent. He no longer tugs on his partner’s wrist, but he weaves in and through the crowds with unrepentant joy, hurrying Hanzo along. 

A wildly tall building stretches high above Hanzo when Jesse finally stops moving. Sheen glass windows reflect the harsh light of the sun, illuminating a blinding obelisk that forces the archer to shield his eyes.

The lobby is of high, expensive modern decorum. Most fixtures are glass hovering over glass, projected touch panels securing frosted glass doors with decimal numbers on them stretching on left and right wings. Hanzo stirs contented in the air conditioning until Jesse guides him to a set of elevators. 

“This is not a place that serves food.” 

“Not this floor.”

He hits 45, the last floor, and up shoots the elevator. Hanzo looks his partner over inquisitively, folding his arms to indicate he’s awaiting an explanation. 

“This is some kinda firm. Gabe knew about it, so we used to stop by here. The food court has the best reubens I think I ever had. Hope it’s still open,” he says, nonchalant.

Hanzo sags a little at the prospect of having wasted time. An assuring arm wraps around his waist, followed by an irresistible wink. He sinks into the gunslinger’s side, breathing in a relaxed scent of spiced tobacco on the beard encapsulating his grin. 

“You know, I’m feelin’ a lot better now.” He rubs his flattened palm a little lower down Hanzo’s body, resting just over his buttocks. He takes the plunge, wriggling hairy fingers into the fold of Hanzo’s _gi_. 

The archer pulls away with an incredulous eyebrow raised when the elevator suddenly dings. “What are you meaning to do here, in public.” He prickles, eyeing Jesse suspiciously. 

The doors slide open to a (thankfully) functional food court, complete with exuberant dolphin fountain around clean, reflective tabling. Hazno smoothes out his beard and clicks his teeth, heading eagerly toward a distinct smell of perfectly cooked steak. 

McCree’s metal hand wraps around his elbow. “Woah, now.” 

“What has gotten into you?” Hanzo wrests his arm away, puffing up indignantly. 

“I don’t know, honey, but I got it real bad.” He takes Hanzo’s wrist. “C’mon.” 

“The sandwiches are over there,” Hanzo says flatly, pointing toward the bustling restaurant sunlit by a glass ceiling.

“Just come _on_.” He pulls. Hanzo sags further, but ultimately relents and lets the gunslinger tug him toward a yellow EXIT door to an outdoor breezeway. As if it were waiting for him, a stinging gust assaults his eyes as they walk out. They are on the tallest building in the area by far, outdoing a tinted building across the street by about five floors. At the end of the breezeway, a flight of stairs takes them up to the roof. Between them and the reflective prism of glass over the restaurant below sits a small, L-shaped length of brick wall, which continues over a series of metal piping to join the wall of the staircase. 

“Have you lost your mind?” Hanzo asks, twisting his face into a bewildered scowl. The wind whips his scarf and loose strands of inky hair about his face. He wriggles out of the scarf, pushing it down with a quick palm. 

Two hands, one hot from flesh and blood and the other metallically conducting the sizzling heat of the sun, wrap around his waist as a bristling kiss takes him completely overboard, swimming his thought process in a rush of adrenaline. 

“What are you doing?” he mouths around Jesse’s lips, unable to keep one hand from lightly grazing over a bearded cheek. 

“God fuckin’ _damn_ you put me on my ass, Hanzo,” sighs the sharpshooter into the sniper’s open mouth. “I need it bad, baby.” 

Hanzo scoffs, placing a flat palm on Jesse’s chest plate. “You think we are doing anything _here_? You cannot be serious.”

“Ain’t no one around.” Jesse gestures toward the corner the L-shape makes. “Ain’t no one to see nothin’. Can’t get more private than this. I’ll make it nice, sweetheart.” 

“You _have_ ,” says Hanzo with remorse. “You have completely lost your mind.” 

Jesse takes off his serape, and then chest plate. It sinks into the spattering of gravel at his feet, holding the wavering flag of the serape in place. “Naw.” His fingers poke at the top button of his shirt, a plain maroon button-up. 

“I am hungry.” Hanzo turns to leave. What a ridiculous notion; the idea that Hanzo would even go for the exhibitionism. As if there is something susbstantial to be found in the adrenaline rush and the open air. It defies all logic to even think-- 

“Hanzo.” 

The archer, waxing naïveté even on the cusp of forty, makes the mistake of turning to look. Here the cowboy stands in the sun with his shirt half-buttoned, contours of hair-dusted chest muscles visible underneath unfastened openings. Hanzo’s gaze, entrapped, rolls down the vignette of McCree posing on one leg. 

The kicker: Jesse has completely unzipped, unbuckled, and sprung himself from his jeans. He stands erect, smoothly unbuttoning the rest of his shirt, in the summer haze. 

“Gotta make up for this mornin’. I left you hangin.’” Smooth, dark and low, eyes looking up from a face parallel with the ground. 

A breath struggles at the back of Hanzo’s throat. Jesse’s white teeth from beneath that sly cropping of facial hair has his urges reeling. And, is it possible, this high above the ground and so potentially close to the public eye, Hanzo feels a twisted, indulgent _thrill?_

“I can’t leave ya without…”

Ultimately, the dismal reminder that Jesse is about to go solo for the better part of a full week is what does Hanzo in. He glides over loose gravel, hands outstretched, almost a marionette in the July blare. His hands grip a hard chest, glide over smooth sides and down into the back of loose jeans. 

Jesse plies into Hanzo’s robes, which he slacks out of and yanks himself free from the belt, letting his own desire be known as he strips all the way down with the help of Jesse’s eager hands. A hot breeze fondles between Hanzo’s knees, eliciting a surprisingly pleasant tremble through his already excited regions. 

“Hands on the wall. Turn around.” Jesse commands into Hanzo’s neck, pressed chest-to-chest. They are firmly up against each other, Jesse’s hand wrapped and stroking ambivalently around them in unison. 

“Do you have pro—”

“’Course I do.” 

“You were planning this, then.” A soft mumble as Hanzo spreads his legs and places flat palms on the rough brick. 

“I had an inklin’, sure.” There’s a shuffling as Jesse dons a condom and pins the wrapping under his chest plate with the serape. 

Hanzo’s heart beats in his chest. The sudden realization: what on earth is he doing? Anyone could open that door at any second. Hanzo tenses as Jesse paws at his sides, poking urgently and teasing Hanzo open. 

“Don’t worry,” he says over a hot breath into Hanzo’s clavicle. “S’ a loud door. We’d hear from a mile away. Relax.” He repeats it like a mantra, easing one finger at a time into Hanzo whilst rested against him from behind. Lips close and open over Hanzo’s firm shoulder, and he sighs heavily against dusted brick. The warm breeze caresses every exchange. 

It turns into a bristling embrace of delicious heat as Jesse enters him. The familiar pressure of the gunslinger’s girth inside draws from Hanzo a wet groan, cheek against the wall, big arms wrapped and flexing around his waist with each gentle thrust. 

“Fuck. I got it so bad, Hanzo. Gawwd you’re so good to me.” A half-sigh, half-whine into Hanzo’s ear as flesh meets flesh. Smooth palms wrap around him and pulsate into his pelvis rhythmically. It drives Hanzo up the wall with insatiable desire. Wholly inebriated, Hanzo digs backwards. The wind in his ear, the explicit adrenaline, the heart-wrenching _thrill_ that settles wave-like through Hanzo with each of Jesse’s coaxing breaths, each time his chest contacts the sweat beading on Hanzo’s back. 

Whispering pet names and curse words breathlessly into Hanzo’s ear, Jesse strains behind him, getting faster and rougher on both sides with each jarring movement. The archer bucks backwards; Hanzo savors every molecule of contact between them. Further, he completely gives in. The thrill of the public eye and the high wind between their legs excites him to a level he would never be ready to admit aloud. He smiles into the brick with ecstasy as Jesse’s ragged breath hitches and he rumbles a deep moan into Hanzo’s shoulder, sinking the flats of his teeth into the soft flesh. Ending upwards with a squeak, Jesse makes one last thrust, belt buckle and spurs clinking into a jittery gust of wind. 

Hanzo climaxes immediately after, barking a series of shameless grunts as he writhes heavy and mindless into Jesse’s hand. 

“Holy fuck, Hanzo.” Jesse stumbles back, bending over to clutch the jeans gathered around his ankles. 

Wordless, numb-legged, sloped against brick and still naked, Hanzo shudders. 

“I can’t fuckin’ believe you went for that. I thought for sure I was gonna get a shove and a cold shoulder for even suggestin’ it.” 

“You nearly did.” Hanzo says, drawing his clothes back up over his body, red-faced and resentful. “And then you went for the guilt.” 

“I haven’t a clue what you’re referrin’ to, Mr. Shimada.” Jesse toots innocently while fastening his chest plate to himself. 

He’s met with a scornful eye roll and a pointed shoulder bump as Hanzo strides by. “You are manipulative.” 

“And you _loved_ that. I saw your face.” Jesse licks his lips as he catches up to the archer, beaming wolf-like into the heat. 

Hanzo pads down the stairs, adjusting his clothing and tightening the scarf in his hair. “We have taken much too long.” 

He hears Jesse whistle and mutter to himself, then crunch across the gravel to follow him, a playfully contented companion that nests his way into the deepest reaches of Hanzo’s heart. Fitting consummately, like a puzzle piece. 

***

2:00 PM. 110 degrees. Hanzo eyes the heat from the sanctuary of the air-conditioned firm lobby as Jesse walks up from the restrooms. Perched lazily in Hanzo’s laced forearms are three bags of hot sandwiches, which will make the trip even worse. 

“Lemme grab some of that.” Jesse plucks two of the bags out of Hanzo’s arms, bumping shoulders and whistling out toward the glass doors. A pulse flutters in Hanzo, a brash fever spiking for a livewire second. The man possessed him to have sex on a rooftop mere feet away from a food court full of businesspeople. He oozes disarmament and charm, a homely light in which Hanzo cannot resist basking in. Pausing, slowing, reveling in every vibrant memory and colorful banter. 

“I love you.” It is quiet, a dull under-the-breath mutter into tacky lobby music.

Jesse’s ears turn pink, he blushes and grins. Scratches under his hat, one eye squinted with a fluster. “Shucks, darlin’. I love you, too.” 

They exit. Tense with the sudden exercise in ineffable intimacy, the blister provokes a rage in Hanzo. No high wind or masculine distractions to comfort him in the weather now. A rush swells in Hanzo’s chest as he joins the ongoing oscillations of the busy intersection. Some misplaced adrenaline with a nameless source makes a quick run through Hanzo’s veins. 

Jesse swaggers out in front, pointing at a dusting of gold paint webbing the window of a nearby dive. “That gold mark means that’s a drug den.” 

“Unsurprising. The bar Irene ran had a similar marking.” 

“Really? Leave it to Talon to be in the business of gettin’ people hiiiigh as a kite in April.” 

Hanzo eyes the gunslinger curiously. “And how did you know about the markings?” With a wry smile, “Have you been known as one of these kites?” 

Jesse is blunt: “I dealt weapons to foreigners and then robbed ‘em with their own guns at seventeen, Hanzo. What d’you think?” 

Hanzo surveys thoughtfully at the scrawling curves and loops of the gold paint as they pass by it. “I have never partaken.” 

“Ain’t missin’ much, I tell you. Only one ‘s ever been good to me is sweet ol’ Mary Jane.” 

“I am unfamiliar.” A peek behind them. The nameless anxiety flares again. Some hollow gust brushes against the back of his neck, making his hair stand on end. 

“Shit, Hanzo.” Jesse says around an unlit cigarillo. “Never once?” 

“Learning to run a criminal empire leaves you with very little time for actual crime, ironically.” Hanzo shifts uncomfortably. Something is wrong. 

As he scans the crowd, his eyes flit past something vaguely recognizable. Unsettled by a sharp spike of dread, he frantically eyes the crowd again. It was nothing but a streak of sleek, black hair, but it was gone before he could pinpoint it. He bites his lip. 

“Somethin’ up?” Jesse asks as he lights the cigarillo, sandwich bag balanced in the crook of his elbow. 

“I do not know.” 

As the heat lounges across his bared shoulder, almost sizzling audibly, he sees her. Sharp, confident, eye pining across the intersection behind them. Hair down, gusting as a truck barrels by in front of her. No makeup, but flawless without so much as a blemish. White skin, dark lipstick smeared delicately across a sly grin. Round sunglasses balance on her nose. She’s heading directly for the building the stalwart couple has just exited from. 

Irene. 

“Take these back to the team and pick me up on that corner.” Hanzo gestures broadly at the pivoting intersection in front of them. Thrusting his sandwich bag into Jesse’s arms, he turns and darts away before his partner can protest.

Jesse does not shout for him, but Hanzo can feel his gaze linger concerned on the back of his neck. _Just hurry_ he fumes inwardly, dodging low into the commotion to follow her. 

A few paces behind, slow and steady, he trails her. Dodging through gauntlets of busy people, lingering in the background of the intersection where people just walk freely, he makes his way back into the building after her. She relishes visibly in the air conditioning, shaking her head and pausing. 

A rousing chorus of fury clutches Hanzo in a frosty embrace, breathing crystals of ice down his throat as he bores into the back of Irene’s neck. She turns her head, ever so slightly, and he slips behind a column to avoid her. Behind her sunglasses, she looks upturned and impatient. 

She continues, briskly making her way up to the elevators. Hanzo bites back frustration; he can’t follow her in. He darts to the grayed, concrete stairwell as the elevator door closes around her. 

He swings straight up the steps, over the guard rail, and onto the landing above him with a swift kick off the wall. He pushes the door open, watches for the elevator to open. No luck. Has he lost her? He resists the urge to punch the metal doors. 

And then the supreme question: what is she doing here? Jesse said Gabe knew this place. Gabe, Morrison. Seventy-Six. Reaper. 

The barn owl. The skull. Fastened, haunting, a blemish in the sleek lines of orange safety paint. 

The back of Hanzo’s throat twists into a knot. Is he here? Now? If so, is Widow? He slips inside an elevator of his own. Is he going to try each floor? Surely not, that would be ridiculous. He randomly elects to push the tenth floor button, and as the doors slide closed, he catches a group of businessmen whispering to each other surreptitiously in front of the 2 FLOOR sign in the hallway.

One of them has the bulge of a handgun piquing his sport jacket. 

He palms the STOP button and slips out of the elevator, walking quickly down the hallway as to not be noticed. 

“Hey, excuse me.” 

Oops. 

Hanzo turns, the gun-carrying man is walking up to him politely with an outstretched hand. The other two walk back down the hallway, the sound of dress-shoes on marble flooring fading as they go. 

“Did you need help finding something?” 

“No, thank you.” 

“Ah, well, we don’t really—”

“It was a mistake to let them leave.” Swift, precise. Hanzo reaches, plucks the handgun out of its holster, and releases the clip onto the floor with a _clack_.

The man readies a fist, which Hanzo expertly deflects while jabbing the heel of his palm into the man’s throat. 

“Where is Irene.” 

The assailant splutters, coughs, collapses against Hanzo, who grabs him by the scuff of the collar. He strikes him once more on the temple, eliciting a sharp groan, and pulls open the stairwell doors. 

“Answer.” Hanzo pins him to the wall, maliciously clubbing the back of the man’s knee with his own. 

“Fuck you, Overwatch.” 

Hanzo grabs the back of the man’s head, clenching a fist into short, brown hair, and slams his forehead against the slate wall. 

“Where is she.” 

“You heard me.” 

He lifts, and slams forward again. The man spasms, gasps. 

“Again?”

“You don’t know what you’re doing.” 

Smack. Hanzo hears the skin splitting open as the man hits the wall again, forced roughly by Hanzo’s conditioned arms. 

“Once more?” 

“Fuck off.” 

Hanzo yanks back again, but instead of pushing forward, he jerks to the side, snaring the man’s neck and forcing him to follow. He makes another swing behind him. Hanzo steps brutal on the back of his ankle. He forces down with all his weight. 

“Fuck! Fuck!” whimpers the man. 

The ding of the elevator pierces the blizzard of Hanzo’s focused fury. He grabs the man by the calves and flips him over the safety railing. As his head hits the stairs below at an unnatural angle, his neck snaps with a sickening crunch. 

Hanzo breathes deep, smoothing out his clothes. He wrenches the door open to see a more mirthful looking group of businesspeople trickle loudly into the elevator. He eyes each of them, scanning owl-like with a marksman’s eyes. Nothing out-of-the ordinary. One of them thumbs the button for the fortieth floor, and Hanzo walks by, nondescript save the clothing as the doors slide closed. 

The two other undercover Talon agents from before round the corner. Hanzo gives them a sharp, predatory look. The elevator opens behind him. As they level their handguns at him, he steps casually to the side. They hesitate—they don’t want to make noise. Hanzo’s mouth lifts at one corner in a cruel smirk as the doors close between them. 

He strides out onto the fortieth floor landing. The businessmen have just emerged and are walking up to a wide hallway with a long window at the end, stretching a plume of sunlight across the reflective floor. The walls here have switched to a thin, permeable wood paneling. 

No sign of Irene, nobody with a gun. He breathes out in short relief, looking the businessmen over once more. A nearby receptionist with mint glasses and a bald patch murmurs something to one of the men and slides a card over the counter at him. Hanzo sees and his heart leaps into his throat. The logic clicks and forces Hanzo into survival mode like an avalanche—no noise, Irene, Talon. No noise, Talon, guns, patrols, five floors below the roof. The roof: five floors above the roof of the building next door.

The man balances Irene’s card in his hand. 

“A bar and grill?” he says in a shrill voice that does not match his lumbering demeanor. 

“Get down _now_ ,” Hanzo hears himself say. He’s suddenly rushing to a windowless corner and pressing himself against the wall. A dust of cold air ghosts across his collarbone. Adrenaline tears through his ribs. That split second. It’s here. 

Like clockwork, Hanzo thinks as it happens. In order, just as it would be. The glass breaks. Vibrations tunnel in a shockwave of sound, ripping a canal of booming noise through the air. 

The elevator dents with a jilting _pang_. Then, the pressure of silence as a thousand-ton pocket of dead space in the atmosphere. 

Irene’s card quivers leaf like to the floor. 

And the blood. It soaks the surrounding businessmen. The body crumples, folds, as it has so many times before in front of Hanzo’s eyes. The brief slip of skull-cracking sound that squelches immediately after the sound of rifle fire. So familiar, and each time it bores a hole the size of a galaxy in the pit of Hanzo’s stomach. 

Just like Hardy. 

_Get it together._ He squeezes his eyes shut. Irene has a plan. The card. Irene left it here. She’s already gone? No; she left it here a while ago. Widowmaker had to have time to set up. She’s here, all right. 

He glances around the corner, squinting into the distance. The reflection of the sun off the marble hinders his vision. He ducks back again to be safe. The survivors have gone beyond shock, have started to tremble and yell and fumble over their phones. They barely pay attention to Hanzo in their ravaged agitation. 

Where would she be? She would meet up with Widow? He doesn’t know her well enough to guess, and how would she get there before they all had to vacate?

The ring of his phone jostles him into a violent shudder. He lifts it to his ear. 

“Hanzo, where are ya?” Jesse barks out of the speaker. 

“I am in the firm. Widow is here. She is in the black building across the intersection. Get to her and keep me on the line.” A series of commands, steady and sure-firing. Lucky, because that is not how Hanzo feels. His head swims. “Have Carlson meet me with my bow.” 

He darts for the stairwell door, throws it open, and leaps directly over the railing. Out of his speakerphone blares the sound of an air rush as Jesse runs toward the building across the street. He hears Jesse say that he’s in the lobby. Hanzo artfully dodges between stairwells, leaping down story after story with moderate ease. 

“Hanzo, this place is empty. There ain’t no receptionist or anything—oh _fuck_ \--”

A gunshot. More whooshes of air. Closer fire: shots from Peacekeeper. Hanzo tugs at his sleeves as he races across the lobby. Streaking the windows and swallowing the color of the creamy tile are blinding, urgent police beacons. He thrusts himself into the commotion and brings his phone back up to his ear. Jesse is panting. 

“It’s fine. Talon is already here. I hear more gunfire upstairs. Get here soon, darlin’.” 

Click. 

Hanzo froths, shudders, blacks out for a quick second as he presses into the afternoon blare. The suffocating sense of protective anxiety grips him like frozen steel. Eyeing for Carlson, he remembers: Talon might have already gotten to the police. He dodges around a cluster of news drones and scampers off to the side of the commotion, taking the long way around the intersection to get to the building across. He narrows his eyes, feeling through the crowd with them, searching for that skinny, angular figure. 

There he is: slipping out from between two parked, blaring police cars as the officers storm the building. Storm Bow’s case dragging him down, he hefts it over to Hanzo. In one fell swoop, he drops the case, spins it, latches it open, and draws his weaponry. In a mad dash, a biting sprint through an infallible urge that he should’ve been with Jesse _minutes_ ago, he rushes up the stone steps of Widow’s nest.

Two dead Talon agents greet them inside. Jesse got them right between the eyes. Carlson grabs one of their guns and hefts it up to his line of sight, aiming it upwards. The building is dusty, mostly abandoned, and absolutely cavernous. Every visible forty floors spirals upwards around them, exposing a glass roof split like a diamond with the sun’s rays. It sits at the top of the tower. 

A flash of red: Jesse rounds a corner one a landing high above. A flash, then six succinct _packs_ of a hammer. Hanzo barrels directly toward the lime-stone wall and shoots directly up it, latching into the railing of the second story and pulling himself over it in a singular, smooth motion. Meanwhile, Carlson ambles up to a broken elevator shaft and wriggles inside. 

Hanzo repeats another two times before Jesse is visible again. He spins around a corner into view, dragging a fist full of exposed hair with him, slamming the agent into the wall with a metal fist. He is still two floors above and across the wide gap. 

“Jesse.” Hanzo tilts his bow just past the gunslinger, and fires. The pulsing blue waves of a sonar arrow flit red with the warning of someone just beyond the wall. Jesse readies. 

“Last rounds,” he calls across the chasm. 

“Acknowledged.” He readies another arrow, eyeing the space just past Jesse. An open doorway, ajar, with a light on the other side. 

_Boom._

Hanzo turns Storm Bow to left, lighting-quick, to see a shroud of black mist spurt out into the open space, followed by a massive upturn of stone chunks as the wall behind it bursts. 

Carlson pops into view from the elevator shaft, dashing down below the guard rails. The writhing shadow deposits itself on the other end of the level, coalescing in a manner not entirely unlike Gérard’s. 

But Hanzo already knows this shadow. 

Reaper’s laugh echoes, hollow and razor-thin against circular walls. “Ingrate. Crime Princess.” His bone-white mask nods at Jesse and Hanzo respectively, then twists inquisitively at Carlson. “Spiderlimbs.” He throws up clawed, metal fingers. “Did you get my little message?” 

“Do you just collect the skulls of small animals? That’s a mite unhealthy, Gabriel.” Jesse says, sneer crossing the molten fury in his eyes. 

“I’d love to banter until the sun goes down, but I’ve got shit to do, boys. Ta-ta and fuck off.” A chin thrown in Jesse’s direction. “Tell _azúl_ I said to eat shit-and-also-my-dust.” He blows the handle off a door with a deafening shotgun blast.

Hanzo fires. The arrow streaks through Reaper’s shoulder, pinning him to the wall. 

“Ha.” He ghosts right through it, leaving a slight rope of shadowy fluid to streak to the floor. He kicks the handle-less door down and ghosts through it, ephemerally coughing another short laugh. 

Jesse starts after him. 

“Jesse!” He shouts, imploring. The gunslinger pulls out his phone, points at it, and brings it to his ear. He dashes, thundering and swift, through the open door. 

“You heard him,” Jesse says once the call connects. Hanzo is sprinting down a curved corridor toward a stairwell now. “Jack is following him. I gotta go, darlin’. This is my assignment. I love you. I’ll call you soon.” 

Too much is happening at once. Hanzo rakes in a sharp breath. “Jesse—” 

“I have to go. I promise I’ll call you soon.” 

For the second time, the click of the phone sets off a time bomb in Hanzo. His vision goes red. It takes all he has not to snap his phone in two. 

“Boss,” calls Carlson from above him in the stairwell. “More Talon up top.” 

“Wait for me,” he snarls, voice trembling. He shudders up the long crawl to Carlson’s position and beyond, fuming all the way up the long chamber of stairs with his subordinate in tow. A hole burns in his chest, fresh and aching, from Jesse’s sudden departure. Combined with the anxiety, it threatens to push him over the edge. His self control has almost completely frozen over. Anything more will topple it. 

“Tell Vandergild to take the truck back to the Watchpoint.” He commands. He cannot keep his voice still. Fists clenched, Storm Bow slung over his shoulder, he thrusts the final door open to a wide, circular penthouse with dusty lime-green carpeting. 

The broken window whistles the tune of the hot gust. Climbing ropes attached to electromagnetic adhesives breach underneath the lip of the roof. Hanzo edges silent around a corner as Carlson takes the opposite. 

“Widowmaker.” Irene’s sharp vocals pierce the back of Hanzo’s neck like thin daggers. He reels, stepping fast down a dark hallway. Voices drift from a dimly lit doorway. Hanzo eases close, settling in against the wall. Infuriatingly, Irene continues in French. 

Widowmaker speaks whispery and sleek. Subtle, effective, and smooth. It does not carry well—even if Hanzo could understand French, he wouldn’t be able to pick out her words. Irene speaks with a tangy offshoot. Hanzo estimates that she is not originally from France. She bounces from syllable to syllable, cheery in resistance to her intentions. 

“Speak English,” grunts a hoarse voice with a frustrated edge. 

“You are a bossy old cripple, you know that?” pouts Irene. 

Hanzo looks over and sees Carlson creeping through an adjacent room. He holds out a hand. _Pause_.

“Sleep her. Overwatch is here,” croaks the voice again. “Let’s go.” 

“I’m busy. Overwatch can wait.” 

“You don’t know Overwatch,” the voice hisses. Irene clicks her tongue loudly. 

“While I appreciate the concern, I am not coming back.” Widowmaker’s slick voice in English grates on Hanzo’s ears, sweeping cold gusts over Hanzo in a flurry. 

“Did you not listen to a word I said?” Irene impatiently spits. “Darling Widow. I am not concerned. This is not an extraction or a rescue mission.” A beat of silence. “This is _property reacquisition_.” 

There’s a soft plush of pressure as someone fires a tranquilizer gun. It is followed by a stern _whump_ and an unsettling dragging sound, like nails on a chalkboard. 

Hanzo signals Carlson. _Back up_. He complies, silently slipping backwards, out into the deteriorating, plush entryway. 

Footsteps grow louder, and Hanzo shirks back around into a nearby study, simmering in the shadows. He nocks an arrow.

Irene passes by first. Walking with a small hop in her step, arms lifting on an imaginary breeze, she dances in front of the doorway for a brief second. She is trailed by two hulking omnics with neon skulls painted over their faceplates. 

Hanzo forces back a sharp exhale. The omnics are carrying an unconscious Widowmaker. 

He could end it right now. He could give away his position and place an arrow in her forehead. He’d surely die, but he’d rid the world of this enigmatic scourge. 

Another figure slowly ekes by the doorway. It is a tired old man in a wheelchair, pushing himself along with a weak lunge. A third omnic catches up to him and speeds him along. 

“Where is Reaper?” coughs the old man as they pass through. 

“He’s distracting the—trademark—Heroes,” Irene mocks, squeaking antagonistic laughter. “The ship is ready. Let’s just go. I am hungry.”

Hanzo peeks out of the room as the ensemble rounds the corner into the entryway. He heaves, pulse pounding, fever coupling with an obsessive desire to sit _still_ and process the timeline of events.

He feels crippled—he knows not to intervene as his latent nemesis is carted off in the most vulnerable state he’s ever seen—but Jesse’s voice cracks through, offering a salient rope of restraint: _This is my assignment_. 

It is not enough. A deafening _crack_ whips through the air as Irene shoves the door open. On the other side, in the main tower, the spectacle of the glass ceiling’s shattered fractions bounces rays of light in every direction. 

The Talon hovership, fitting perfectly in the space allotted, sinks down, nonchalant.. 

He sees his chance, pulls the arrow back all the way. In sync, the rhythm of his heart increases as does the torque of the bowstring. A sucked in, sharp breath, the transition from lime-green to cold monochrome as his heart stops entirely. 

They are here. They are hungry. 

He fires; the dragons erupt from the arrow with an explosion of urgency, thundering toward the Talon ship, eager to sink their ethereal teeth into its mechanisms. They travel in a beeline, awake, redemptive, and predatory. 

And then the shadowy thorns of black ink shoot up Hanzo’s legs, instantly piercing his heart. Blood wells up in his mouth, his eyes sting. The dragons slow, tremble, roar in an agonizing screech of confused disorientation. A black shadow stings along their bodies, spreading, enveloping them like a web of decay. It drags them downwards, forcing them directly into the space of the spiral of the tower and completely missing the Talon ship. Their majestic, ferocious, carnal roars turn into bitter squeaks of absolute torment as Hanzo’s consciousness flashes before him, painful and blinding. He feels his skull cave in, his bones melt. The cold envelopes him in a swath of total black. Unable to feel, unable to think. Wholly torn apart by an unknown force. 

The dragons seethe and clash into nothingness as the darkness envelopes them, strangling them and twisting them into unnatural angles before they pulse with blue light and wither away. 

Irene turns and blows a teasing kiss as the ship’s cabin door slides shut, and that is the last thing Hanzo sees.


	7. Chapter 7

Smoke. 

A vaporous maelstrom of sickly-sweet smoke swirls in a tight radius around Hanzo in the oppressive nighttime—a carousel of cancerous cold. Snow gathers at his bare feet, numbing and reddening them with brash irritation. He settles weakly to his knees nonetheless. Above, the sky dazzles with a hazy visage of dancing, multicolored lights. Not quite stars, not quite fixtures, they sizzle and swing around each other in a synchronized fashion, leaving only a slight web of the actual sky behind them. The smoke tunnels them further, plastering pale, pastel ghosts of their true colors onto Hanzo’s blank face. 

The smoke smells like disease. The smell of a plague ward. And yet, it is subtle. Behind it, the olfactory pressures of cold winter are easily detectable. Something about the smell of the snow whipping around in the distance of nothingness sets off an uneasy nostalgia inside Hanzo. After fumbling around through his senses for a few listless seconds, he recognizes it: the spiced smell of his mother’s famous _oden_ , a stillborn memory of secretly prepared daikon lingering with his mother’s perfume that never paid its rent. She always told him she’d teach him the recipe when he got older. His skin tightens, prickles of venom writhing underneath his skin, dry and ashy. 

_Hey there, darlin’._ Jesse’s voices comes trickling like spring water over sun-streaked boulders. Hanzo shoots his head up, the uneasiness in his stomach partially washing away. Jesse is stepping through the wall of smoke, skeletal trails of it seeping off of him in unnatural waves. He, too, is pale with the cold. The hue of his skin remains the same, slightly browned, earthy-warm and comfortable in the confines of the serape. Hanzo senses it right away, though. The image of him is accurate, but something behind those shining, clay-dusted brown eyes is off. The cowboy remains unnaturally stonelike. Hanzo notices the serape also remains still as a stone, though Hanzo’s clothing stirs and lifts with the swirl of the frigid wind. 

_How are ya? I’m doin’ fine. Even though you left me here all alone._ His voice sounds distant. It towers over Hanzo, mountainous, and tears at strings of unknown and unsourced heartache. He cannot speak, nor lift his head any further. He remains motionless in the snow, moisture soaking through the fabric of his clothes. The cold is uncomfortable, but not unbearable. It almost feels homely, as if this is where he belongs. As if he could sink into its depths and quietly embrace the stillness in his veins, and that would be right. That would be good. 

_Aw, honey. I don’t blame ya. That’s all you know, ain’t it? Cuttin’ people up and leavin’ without a trace._

A brazen, familiar shadow stings into the smoke. The gray, vaporous storm around them becomes infected with an anemic black spread like food coloring to water. 

_I love you, Hanzo. Even from here._

The shadow reaches out from the storm, grasping desperately at the serape. A ghosted hand wraps around his metal arm. The whispering of the smoke slides off the shadow, discordant shapes blurring their lines. Looking at it forces Hanzo’s eyes to unfocus and well with moisture. The black hand on Jesse’s arm tightens, eliciting a disturbing groan from the stiff, cold metal. 

_Forever._

With a sick combination of twisting mechanics and crunching bone, the shadow casually detaches Jesse’s arm. Ropes of oily crimson spray the snow. 

Hanzo cries out reflexively, but remains hopelessly still.

The gunslinger is unmoving, neutral, totally unaffected. More tendrils arrive now, clutching at his clothing, ripping the serape. Some, and this disturbs the stone-stuck archer the most, actually caress his cheeks, slide thoughtful along his lips, and lift his chin with gentle fingers. 

The sound of ripping clothing prompts Hanzo to try and move. He fails as the serape is discarded as a brilliant, red tattered strip into the bone-white snow. His body refuses to move. His vocal cords refuse to thaw. Imprisoned in awe, shackled by unending torture, he watches as the hands become more aggressive, kneading at the gunslinger’s musculature and tearing more of his clothing. 

One of his legs snaps with a sound that triggers a tidal wave of nausea within Hanzo. Slow at first, and then urgent and slick, the shadows begin to settle on Jesse’s mangled body, oozing into the prefectures in his skin and sliding with a terrifying _squish_ into his throat. 

Hanzo tries again to move, trembling in the cold and completely helpless. Frustration encumbers him. He struggles against the fatigue, but it remains steadfast as a series of chains holding him frozen, quite literally, in place. His blood spikes. 

The shadows twist Jesse’s facial features, his body, his clothing and his stance. Revolting crunching noises can be heard below the curtain of black. Before it even solidifies, lifts, Hanzo knows. 

Gérard stands slumped and placid with horrid stillness where Jesse once was. The serape still lays as a ruby streak on the ground. Gérard jitters and pulses like static across a holoscreen. 

_Come._ He lifts a hand, voice hollow and coarse. Sand echoing through a metal tube. 

Salt stings the edges of Hanzo’s eyes as he stares transfixed on the serape. They are locked on it, as if moving away will cause them to dissolve and join the smoky vortex that presses ever closer. 

_Come and join your mother and father. Your brother. Your lover and your friends. Your friends of friends._

The laugh that spits snaky and wet from Gérard’s jowls turns Hanzo’s vision red. His mouth twists up in a cruel grimace. He eyes Hanzo as a child to a stinkbug. 

_You are the last, and you are alone._

***

Pain blinds Hanzo to every aspect of his surroundings. Beginning in the back of the skull, it shoots down his spine and radiates throughout his body in thick waves, leaving behind a clammy numbness as it sweeps through him. A vaguely soft surface stirs beneath him as he stretches, shamelessly groaning in discomfort. He blinks through a thick sheet of hazy tears that roll blearily down his exhausted face. 

Gradually, the pain lessens and becomes manageable. Equally gradual, his eyesight returns to normal. He recognizes the ceiling of his own quarters, registers the familiar feel of thin sheets on his exposed arm. The soreness prevents him from shuddering out of his clothing, so he nestles into a restless discomfort and tries to catalogue his surroundings. 

His quarters are empty. The Watchpoint is rather silent; the sound of drilling and hammering and general carrying on has ceased since the mess hall’s completion. It must be midmorning, as the heat is certainly present, but not overbearing. Soft light streams in via the still-open window. Meandering, too, is the breezy scent of heated flora. It is a relieving comfort as well as a staunch contrast to the sensations within his nightmare. 

A glass of water sits nearby on the nightstand. He reaches for it, grasps it with tender fingers, and brings it to his lips. 

And then he remembers. 

Burned suddenly into his frontal lobe is the peal of that sharp sting of darkness through his heart. For a second his eyes see nothing but the strangled dragons, suffocating and writhing as if choking to death together. The sensation of someone roping his organs too tight, pulling, _yanking_ on his entrails. 

The glass breaks against the floor, spreading a thin puddle mired in sharp corners. It all comes back to him as an overwhelming blur of memory: Jesse and Reaper, Widowmaker, the old man in the wheelchair. He reaches for a phone, any form of communication, and finds he is unable to move. Panic rears in the back of his throat. Hanzo seizes up, scalp hitting the headboard of the bed as he coughs rhythmically with the alarm sounding in his brain. Just like in the dream, invisible chains of immeasurable fatigue hold him down. Another radiated dusting of pain trembles through his extremities. 

In the midst of it all, the door opens. Through his bleary vision, he sees the compact figure of Torbjörn enter the room followed by a figure that blurs in and out of focus. It must be Christen; somewhere his ears pick up the accent. He coughs, chokes once more, and then forces himself to be still as he tries to refocus his eyes.

“Yer awake, I see,” says Torbjörn with just a pinch of acerbity as he eyes the mess on the floor.

“What happened,” Hanzo croaks, taking a disproportionate amount of effort to sweep his hand over his forehead. He flusters, blinks through the sore daze. Behind Torbjörn is indeed Christen. 

“According t’ Carlon’s briefing, ye took quite a beating,” says Torbjörn. 

Christen bends low and close to Hanzo’s bunk. He produces a ratty rag from his back pocket and mops up the broken glass and water (Hanzo turns away from this sight, feeling sickeningly incompetent). “A lot has happened. You’ve been out for two days, boss. I checked over you best I could, but…” 

Hanzo folds. Two days he’s been asleep, rotting with pain and useless to his team. Two days because of a stupid mistake. Two days because he failed to keep himself in check. Torbjörn keeps going over the details. Lacking a specific diagnosis, Christen merely watched him and introduced anti-inflammatory and probiotic medications to his bloodstream. Carlson gave a full report, but his description of the dragons didn’t help much with figuring out what went wrong. 

“Jesse,” Hanzo snaps suddenly, catching Christen midsentence. 

“Checked in a few hours ago via conference call,” says Torbjörn. “He’s incognito, so we can’t call him, but he’ll call us.” 

Christen produces another glass of water from the bathroom sink, hovering it over his captain’s open hand. 

Hanzo accepts it with tired fingers and nods with gratitude. He gulps it greedily, feeling the cold refreshment sprout deep in his hollow chest and flower gloriously throughout his body. 

“Thank you,” he reiterates, life returning to his raspy voice, setting the glass on the nightstand. 

Christen shrugs, flustering. 

“Getting back t’ business,” grunts Torbjörn, “the new head o’ medicine is arriving tonight. I’ll have ‘em look ye over.” 

“Do we know who it is?” Hanzo asks, craning his head into his pillow. The soreness has begun to fade, but he is still weighted deeply by fatigue. He shifts uncomfortable, disoriented by the ineptitude. 

Christen fidgets. Torbjörn weighs an exasperated sigh out into the thin air with a subtle eye roll. 

“It’s a bot. Haven’t memorized its name.” 

The sniper raises a questioning eyebrow. An omnic, the head of medicine? Surely that will not go over without controversy. 

As if on the same wavelength, Christen says, “Gilbert flipped out. He was orphaned in Baltimore right after the Crisis, so I can’t blame him, but…” 

Christen flashes a bright light in Hanzo’s eyes and checks him over once more. “Nothing’s better or worse. I’d just get some more sleep. Maybe the new head has something I don’t.” He fidgets some more, clearly distraught. 

“It is fine. I need to think.” Hanzo turns to look at the wall. 

“Okay. Everyone is worried. Maybe you can make an appearance at the mess hall for dinner if you feel up to it. It’s one of the first nights we’re having real food. Vandergild is a killer cook.” Christen ambles toward the exit door, chewing on his lower lip. 

“One more thing,” Torbjörn gruffs with a hand raised. He waves Christen off, and the medic drags his feet as he rounds the corner and vanishes down the hallway. “Based on Carlson’s incident report, Shimada, yer the one that fucked this up. Don’t expect me to sugarcoat it when I report that t’ Winston tomorrow.”

“I would expect nothing less,” Hanzo sighs, dry and reclusive. 

“By the way, tomorrow morning we’re opening th’ medbay. We're gonna perform a controlled detonation of th' door. Blow it right off its hinges.”

Hanzo twists in anticipation. Finally. 

“I made a mistake before,” Torbjörn adds hesitantly. “Ye might wanna consider keeping that cowboy around. Ye fuck up when he’s not here.” The door slides shut behind him, leaving the archer in a throbbing silence. 

_Two days_. It echoes, bouncing off the chasm in Hanzo’s skull. How will he recompense? How will he atone? The more he attempts to wipe the slate clean, the more it dirties. Another mirror breaks. More blood is shed. Unable once more to control his impulse, he left Carlson and Vandergild high-and-dry in the field. Moreover, the hunger of the dragons combined with a forty-eight hour lack of food has Hanzo’s stomach clenched viciously in a vice grip. 

_How many more times are you going to lose control? How much more is it going to cost you?_ The dispassionate hissing of an uninhibited voice vaguely reminiscent of Genji’s strangles him. As the memories swirl and bump into each other, meandering aimlessly through Hanzo’s fevered thoughts, he realizes it: just as he is unworthy of brotherhood, Hanzo is unfit to lead. 

He spends the next eight hours fitfully passing in and out of pressured, dreamless sleep. He wakes repeatedly to a cold sweat. At some point, he managed to discard his clothing, leaving it in a pile next to the bed, Jesse style. Through the all-encompassing throb of self-loathing, Hanzo finds himself curiously preoccupied with the man in the wheelchair. Specifically, his contemptuous hiss: “you don’t know Overwatch.” Unavoidable thoughts of the secrets the Watchpoint might contain, Gérard and his influence, and the disconnected series of airy excuses as to how Widowmaker came into being flood Hanzo as the gritty, rattling cough of the old man seeps through his ears once more. 

“You don’t know Overwatch.” It prompts the question: does Hanzo? 

 

***

The archer finds the strength to stand somewhere around 7:00 PM. Having awoken once more from a dreamless, restless nap, he suddenly feels strong enough to move around. The soreness still edges in with every sparse movement, giving him a callous shuffle and an embarrassing hunch. Nevertheless, he showers and dresses as the last blink of the sun slips into the breezy nighttime; the perfect atmosphere for Hanzo’s aching bones. The warm water over his dirtied body is also a welcome respite. He brushes his teeth, slips slow and trembling into one of Jesse’s flannels—overly loose and easy to slip over his head, not to mention indulgently fragrant with the plain smell of Jesse’s barebones detergent—and a pair of old sweatpants. 

The air is a pleasing temperature in the breezeways between the Watchpoint’s complexes. Hanzo walks with a shameful stutter in his step. Each movement comes inevitably with an air of caution, as a stray angle or a misstep results in a cold, sharp ache that shoots from the problem area between his spine and heart through the rest of his body. He considers briefly the possibility that the damage is permanent. The thought leaves a disorienting bitter taste in his mouth, like oversteeped tea. 

Hanzo enters to the smell of freshly prepared meat and some startling sweet-sourness. The mess hall is bright and full of traffic. It was previously rare to see all of the Watchpoint’s personhood in one place, and when they did gather, it was either for dull or somber purposes. Engineers from various subsections and teams are scattered about plush orange seating and still-sleek white tables, as are the grunts of Hanzo’s team. They eye the visibly bustling kitchen from a distance, wherein Vandergild stands over a team of both engineers and defensive talents as they work over the hot stoves or prep counters. 

Murray, sitting with Flores and Carlson, visibly brightens when Hanzo makes eye contact with her. She waves him over, and after a short consideration that maybe he should just go back to sleep, he reluctantly concedes. Edged, hesitant, and hangdog, he begins the trek over to them, feeling multiple sets of eyes on him as he hobbles. She sees immediately, and moves to rise. To Hanzo’s unending relief, Flores bars her with an outstretched arm, giving her the faintest shake of his head. 

“Shoulda gotten you crutches,” says the demolitions expert when the captain finally sits, pushing down the embellished unease and embarrassment as much as he can. 

“I vaguely recall a conversation in which I told you, in so many words, to mind your own business.” Hanzo inwardly winces at the inadvertent grumpiness. “Do I need to bring up the specifics?” 

“Okay, wasn’t looking for a sass contest,” Flores mutters as Murray overshadows him by palming his face and leaning over him to get a good look at Hanzo across the table. She doesn’t say anything, only meets his eyes with a concerned frown. 

“There’s going to be real meat in front of us soon,” Carlson says, rubbing a hand over his flat stomach. “Honest-to-God real food.” 

Hanzo sweeps eyes over Carlson, seemingly unaffected. Casually dispassionate, leaning back against the bench with arms up over the top, breathing heavy into the fluorescent lighting. Does he harbor any resentment for Hanzo’s errors? What was it like to see his captain crumple into a pathetic heap on the floor of an abandoned building while their worst enemies escape unharmed? 

An ache blossoms in Hanzo’s head, pounding through his skull. He slowly grabs the pitcher of water and, with shaking hands, levels himself a short glass. He gulps it down in one jittering movement. 

The clamor begins to cease as Vandergild starts heaping food onto the line trays. Eager for the meal they worked so hard to make possible, engineers mull up to it first. From a distance, Hanzo sees beef strips and stir fry. The smell is simultaneously nauseating and enthralling—hunger bubbles in the pit of his stomach. 

"I'll get you some, boss," says Murray as she hops to a standing position. 

"Unnecessary," grumbles Hanzo. 

"Necessary." Murray levels a fist on his shoulder as she passes by. 

Hanzo slumps into the folds of Jesse's shirt, wearily gazing through Murray. "Perhaps a small helping."

Chelsea is visible at a distant table, sitting across from a few other engineers. Her obsession bothers him even further now that he knows the medbay is to open. Her black hair, which at first fell in lovely sheets around her wide shoulders, has been matted and tufty with stiff flyaways as of late. She, in essence, does not look any worse than before. But some longitudinal shift has occurred in her disposition. No longer tired or destitute-looking, she merely looks defeated. As if she has wholeheartedly accepted the loss of whatever struggle had encumbered her in the previous week. She does not rise to get food, and her cheeks have sunken in. Plainly, she just looks _sad_ as the archer observes her from across the room. 

Murray sets down a warm plate of stir fry in front of him. The steam wafts into his nostrils, setting off a chain reaction of painful jolts as he realizes exactly how hungry he is. 

"Thank you," he mumbles as the petit woman shanties into the bench across from him. 

"Didn't I make it clear?" Murray sits up straight, salutes with a satirically stoic chin jutted forward, and then descends upon her food like a ravenous hyena. Soon to join them are Flores, Carlson, and a rejuvenated-looking Christen. 

“How are you feeling?” Christen says with the tenor of a pediatrician checking up on a toddler.

Hanzo scoffs. “Crippled.” 

Christen twists into a frown, and sets his fork down. 

Hanzo narrows concerned eyes at the medic, about to speak up when Gilbert practically throws his tray onto the table and drops to a sitting position, fork tapping a fuzzy upper lip. 

“They hired a fucking omnic,” he rumbles angrily, hopping his knee up and down in heated excitement. 

“I am aware,” says Hanzo in response. 

“It’s thirty years post-Crisis, Andrew,” Murray counters, leaning in from across the table. “What’s with the attitude?” 

“It’s thirty years post-Crisis, _Carla,_ ” shoots Gilbert, jutting his lower lip out in a furious pout. “And those _things_ are still walking around. And now I’m being made to trust one of them to be my _doctor?_ ” He barks a short, mocking laugh and folds his arms. 

“Woah,” says Carlson, “come down to Warp-2 there, scooter.”

“I refuse,” Gilbert says, throwing his back into the bench and frowning up at the ceiling. “I refuse to be treated by it.” 

“Do as you like,” Hanzo says. “It is your health.” Something about Gilbert’s tone, the classic story of the tortured military hero from a traumatic background, exhausts Hanzo. Urges to reprimand him are foamed over by fatigue and a distinct denial of self-worth following the two-day revelation. In essence, he recoils from his duties and shrinks further into the firm plush of the bench. 

It occurs to him that Gilbert might be his least familiar subordinate. His rant had given more knowledge on his background than any other interaction. Nevertheless, Hanzo muses that it is a tired story: the gruff and traumatized hypermasculine soldier with a penchant for outrageous displays. It reminds him, vaguely, of home, where the narrative is all-too present in the Shimada clan. Where crime-weary old men who had seen too much would suddenly snap and beat someone to death.

Ever so subtly, a fading memory of his father standing, hip cocked to one side with his foot on the neck of a struggling man in a business suit. The patriarch muttered something about a prostitute, and then sank all of his weight into his ankle. The crunch still echoes through Hanzo's skull, as does the weight of his mother yanking his arm to look away. 

Just then the mess hall doors swing open. Behind it, Torbjörn stands next to a tall, serenely-postured omnic. Behind them the moon is strong in the sky, and an airy gust lazes in after them. The glow of their faceplate is damaged by a long, diagonal and dented scar down its façade. They breeze with an easy step into the mess hall, spreading a hush of voices as they go. Their gait is precise, deliberate, and yet supremely laid back. They stop in the middle of the room, all eyes pressed on their reflective metal body. Mechanical hands fold together as they reposture theirself once more, shoulders settled backward, relaxed and flexible. They move their head, scanning along their newfound audience. Hanzo locks eyes with Torbjörn, who looks tired and begrudgingly complacent. 

“Good evening, Watchpoint: Grand Mesa,” comes the airy, feminine voice from the omnic. The vocal speaker crackles subtly, indicating great age, and they nod their head to punctuate. “I am Anundhatta Roi, your new head of medicine. It is a pleasure to meet you all. I understand my office is to be establish—” Anundhatta cuts theirself off when Gilbert sinks a loud, clenched fist into the polished dining table. He rockets to a stand and stomps toward the doors, staring straight ahead with a burning gaze. 

Murray again looks as if she is about to leap up, and once more Flores holds her back with an outstretched arm like one might prevent a dog from jumping. 

Gilbert slams the back exit door behind him. Vandergild boosts up from his own seat and goes to follow the ex-marine. Hanzo remains in his seat, searching for the omnic’s reaction. 

They don’t seem to have one, picking up where they left off. “I understand my office is to be established tomorrow morning. Feel free to address me with questions. I will be in dormitory 1101 until then.” Politely, Anundhatta inclines slightly from the waist, then turns on a graceful heel and slips back through the doors, leaving Torbjörn to grumble up to the food set aside for him.

The co-commander holds Hanzo’s gaze nearly the entire time. A development of familiarity over the months helps Hanzo recognize the curious glint in the engineer’s eye as he passes—the aged, knowing look that indicates some further astuteness he will not reveal aloud. 

Hanzo turns to his food and takes careful bites, savoring the simple heat of the food before its rustic flavors. Careful to avoid eating too quickly, he satiates his hunger one tender morsel at a time, bent quietly over his plate. The conversation begins to wander—from a brief mention of Carlson’s and Vandergild’s silent drive back to the Watchpoint with an unconscious Hanzo in the back to Flores’ grandmother and her years as a circus contortionist. The group glosses over Hanzo’s condition in respect to his privacy, something by which he is wholly taken aback. His first few missions with Overwatch had concerned gazes and intrusive looks pinned in his direction constantly. While he could sense the intentions were good, it could be nothing but trespassing to Hanzo the ever-silent. He is glad to see his team learning to mind their own business in the bluntest sense. 

He stares at his empty plate for a long time before he feels Torbjörn’s eyes on him again. The Swede jerks his head toward the EXIT door while mopping up the remnants of his food off his furry lips. Hanzo shifts to stand, relying on the strength of his arms until he can lock his faint knees. 

“Do not wait for me. Vandergild will have your patrol schedules,” he rasps absently as he stipples unsteadily to follow Torbjörn. Hanzo feels their reluctantly still collective gaze on him as he ambles, each step requiring a different and stifling amount of concentration. He feels heat on his brow as he creeps outside. 

“Yer thinking about giving up yer position, aren’t ye?” greets Torbjörn in the night, clicking his claw against the wall. 

Hanzo reels as the entrance squeaks closed. He leans into the cold steel of the door, glaring up into the sky. “You ought to be more forthcoming with your perceptions.” 

“Hah, kids don’t gimme enough credit,” mutters the engineer. 

“What is this about.” Hanzo rolls his shoulder. “I was about to retire.” 

“Ye’d be making a big mistake,” answers Torbjörn, stroking his beard. “So ye showed yer team yer a human. They’re supposed t’ _pass_ you one day. How’re they gonna do that when they think yer a perfect demigod with yer arrows and yer dragons.” 

“I am not physically fit to lead, in any case,” muses the archer dryly. 

“That’s the other thing. Yer messed up. Let yerself recover. We only been working together a few months, but I know yer gonna try t’ push yerself too hard. Let yer pups take care o’ something. Give ‘em the reigns. Test ‘em.” 

“When did I sign up for your diatribes?” Hanzo shoots weakly, lacking conviction. 

“When ye signed up fer Overwatch. I’ve seen it all, kid. Yer nothing special. Weird shit,” he gestures around them, into the carefree air of the night, “is nothing special.” 

He shuffles to the door. Hanzo moves aside to let Torbjörn clutch the handle. 

“One more thing,” says the engineer. “Talk t’ Gilbert. Just cuz yer slow doesn’t mean ye get to quit.” He lets the door squeak shut behind him. 

Hanzo stands stoically in the blued light above the entrance, soaking in the nighttime. A snorting half-snicker puffs unavoidably on his lips. When did Hanzo Shimada start seeking comfort in the words of a Swedish tinkerer? 

***

Stiffness and swelling await Hanzo in the morning. Three slow taps on the door stir him from a damp and fitful sleep. He trembles, shuddering out of bed with rhythmic tremors. Whatever toxin he incurred, whatever bizarre malady that plagues him, it has moved well past initial shock into overwhelming frustration and useless, bitter anger. It hangs off the end of his thoughts as a crushing weight that makes him feel, more than normal, that his temper could slip at any time. 

“One moment,” he rasps weakly, washing down the last bit of water in his glass. He sits up in bed, scoops Jesse’s shirt up, and throws it over his back. “Enter.” 

The door slides open to reveal Anundhatta standing patiently with their arms dropped to their sides. “I hope I am not intruding, Mr. Shimada. Mr. Christen has shared with me your case file.” 

“Come in,” Hanzo says hesitantly. The omnic steps over the threshold, producing a small, white tablet from beneath the folds of their clothing. Hanzo stares at it while Anundhatta makes small, succinct taps on the screen of the tablet with one dainty finger. They are ornate, wearing a suave, sliken purple _sari_ with bolts of orange and gold spun down the back and trimming the edge of the shoulder. Hanzo finds himself surprised to see them wearing it. 

“As Mr. Christen undoubtedly reported, no known toxins have entered your system. Nevertheless, your heart-rate is alarmingly jagged over time, your muscles have been regularly spasming, and your chemical content is very off-balance.” Anundhatta’s diagnosis-voice is firm, yet amenable.

“Indeed,” Hanzo mumurs, “I have heard this before.” 

“Yes. Mr. Christen has done surprisingly well with the resources he’s had, but I have a few things I would like to try, if you do not mind. They are not invasive. Merely… diagnostic.” 

“Right now?” Hanzo says with a tinge of anxiety. He is not sure whether or not he trusts the omnic, and the issue of unfamiliarity stands as an even bigger obstacle.

“Yes. It will only take a few minutes. If I am correct in my hypothesis, I may even be able to assist you with attending the clearance of the medbay this morning.” Anundhatta answers with an amicable (and hopeful) crane of the neck. 

The sniper hesitates. Outside, a bird settles on the window, tapping on the glass. The heat already radiates in waves off stagnant patches of dirt marring the broken concrete of the sidewalk below. Today the thought that overcomes the rest is that of Jesse. Briefly he imagines the gunslinger out incognito, chasing Reyes and Morrison across a southern Colorado cliff face. Maybe they’ve already gone down as far as New Mexico, or even Arizona. Could they be in Oklahoma or Texas by now? 

He shifts uncomfortably. “Do as you will.” 

“Lie back, please,” bodes the doctor. Hanzo complies, stretching out on top of the thin fabric. Anundhatta postures their fingers in a salutary position with their middle finger locked down under their thumb, hovering their hands just over Hanzo’s chest. After a few short, tense seconds, a golden glow piques from Anundhatta’s palms, prompting a stir of surprise from Hanzo. 

“Relax, it is merely an indirect biotic initiator,” Anundhatta explains. “I have been outfitted with several modules in my hands that produce different biological reactions based on the _mudra_ I exhibit.” 

Hanzo stares at the doctor’s faceplate for a long while as their steady hands sweep over Hanzo’s body. He feels nothing from the beam except a slight, comforting warmth. After a few seconds, Anundhatta shifts their other hand over, thumb and forefinger pinched, and waves it, too, in Hanzo’s general direction. 

“You are Shambali,” he observes distantly. 

“Indeed. Very few of the Shambali are allowed an education in medicine. I was very fortunate. I am told it has to do with the fact that I never fled to Nepal when resistance against the Shambali surged.” 

“Where did you go?” 

“I stayed in India. The Shambali presence there is weak, and we are often treated worse than in Nepal.” Anundhatta answers. “But, due to an ‘olive branch’ initiative, I was offered a formal education.” 

Hanzo’s eyes linger on their marred faceplate. “There is another Shambali working as a liaison for Overwatch.” 

“Yes. Zenyatta Tekharta. We are acquaintances. He is young, one of the generation of omnics to adopt gender.” Hanzo feels a sudden surge of inward twitching and shuddering as Anundhatta’s secondary hand changes positions and lingers just above Hanzo’s solar plexus. “I have offered to teach him proper medicine as opposed to the simplistic biotic/necrotic feeds the Nepalese Shambali use in their orbs. He declined.” A short pause. “It is as I thought. You have not been poisoned.” 

Hanzo twists his head inquisitively at the omnic. The bizarre sensation fades away when Anundhatta lets their hand drop once more to their side The omnic, locked in concentration, elicits an unavoidable sense of superiority in Hanzo. Unable, at least for now, to shake the prejudices burned into his mind by his family, he surreptitiously stores the bits of information Anundhatta has fed him so that he may look into them later. 

“At least, not physically,” Anundhatta continues, switching hand positions once more. They now lock down their index finger under their thumb on both hands, swirling them above Hanzo. “This is not a condition Western medicine can solve. It is not a physical ailment, Mr. Shimada, but an ethereal one so strong it affects you physically.” 

“How do you mean?” 

Anundhatta’s head sweeps over the general area of Hanzo’s tattoo, peaking up over the collar of Jesse’s loose flannel. “You are Shimada, one of the most spiritually sensitive bloodlines on the planet. You offer your karmic control and balance to draconic spirits in exchange for the ability to manifest their power.” 

“How is it you know all this?” Hanzo leers, edging on outright dubiety and mistrust. 

“I am well-travelled, Mr. Shimada. And your name isn’t entirely run-of-the-mill. It is easy to see what practices lead to the ability to summon the dragons. You give a blood offering, pass a meditative trial, and combine yourself with draconic energy by reinfusing the blood. It opens your senses to a world most humans only visit in their dreams.”

Hanzo edges further. “The blood ceremony is privately held by Shimada leadership. There is no way you can know that from a textbook.” 

“Did you know that there is a clan in China that do the exact same thing, but with the spirits of wolves? I had the honor of performing the blood transfusion at their ceremony. It’s harder to imagine what might entail a ceremony entreating dragons, but the outcome is similar.” 

“The _Láng-Zhejiang_ ,” Hanzo murmurs in dull surprise. Flickering reminders of a distantly partnered clan whose name had gone extinct in a civil war twitch at the forefront of the archer’s mind. “I thought they had died out.” 

Anundhatta doesn’t answer, only edges their hand very close to Hanzo’s abdomen. 

“You were exposed to a form of metaphysical toxin. A poison of the spirit, if you will. It is possible that the toxin begins as a physical ailment, and then transcends. Most unusual. And you were exposed to it a long while ago. It has been fermenting in you for weeks, if not more.” 

Hanzo, shivering with unadulterated shock, slacks his jaw at Anundhatta. “Weeks?” 

“Yes. It was not until you summoned the dragons it was able to manifest itself physically. Have you been feeling off mentally? Any noticeable personality changes?” 

After taking a moment to collect himself, coping with the idea that some attack has gone on in his body for _weeks_ , before answering. “Yes.” It’s the truth; the unending, aching anxiety that has plagued him since he arrived here now has a source. “I am… inconsistent.” 

“Understood. Mr. Shimada. Only via repetitive therapy over time can ease this out of your system. Furthermore, I have a fear that its source may still be around this area. We must figure out what it is and eliminate it before it can accost anyone else with a spiritual sensitivity. For now,” Anundhatta once more switches hand positions and rests cold metal fingers on Hanzo’s collarbone, pushing down, “the combination of the _vaayu mudra_ and a shot of lazapran will help you walk better.” They produce a small syringe from a satchel at their side and, before Hanzo can object, plunges it into the side of his neck. 

Hanzo experiences first a cooling sensation, followed by an infuriating itchiness, which almost instantly subsides into nothing but a nervous looseness in his joints. Overall the sensation is a vast improvement over the soreness and stiffness. 

“We have one hour until we open the medbay,” Anundhatta says. “Thank you for allowing me to examine you. If you do not mind me saying, your case is… most fascinating.” 

“As long as it is productive in the end of getting me back to my work,” Hanzo mutters. Anundhatta nods in acquiescence, and serenely steps toward the sliding door, departing with quiet, clanking steps. 

Hanzo sighs into the open air of his quarters. He remains ravenously hungry, and yet the leftover warmth from Anundhatta’s biotic sensors claws him into stillness, basking in the ever-so-slight comfort of the bed. He wonders what Jesse would think of Anundhatta. He’d probably laugh it off or deflect, Hanzo thinks. He’d probably joke until they were alone. From his recollections, Jesse is fairly neutral about the presence of omnics. He never goes along with the tide, especially when it comes to his own morals. Naturally resistant to conditioning. The outlaw. Strong jaw pointed in its own direction, away from everyone else. Into a rugged, warm distance where the only thing that proves one correct is the steaming end of a gun barrel. 

Affection drowns him. In the midst of every stress on his spine, Jesse’s absence weighs most heavily. To his (at this point explainable, but still unbearable) surprise, tears begin to roll down his cheek. 

*** 

Buckled by the heat of the sun, Hanzo stands next to Torbjörn as Vandergild and Flores affix small, blinking black boxes to the double doors of the medbay. Sweat beads on Hanzo’s forehead, thankfully not from the simple walk from the dorms, but from the afternoon blister. He watches in wretched anticipation as Flores steps back with a small device lousy with numerous tiny buttons in his hand. 

Anundhatta stands tall off to the side, reflectively white and almost blinding in daylight. Their clothing ripples in an intense purple wave, loose ends drifting lazily with small pulses of a light breeze.

Hanzo half-expects to see Chelsea somewhere, either right up front or peering ostentatiously through an open window. No such luck today. Torbjörn and an anonymous engineer stand to Hanzo’s left as Flores gives the all clear and Vandergild steps back from the door. 

Rapid-fire, Hanzo considers what could be beyond those two metal facades. What is it that Chelsea knows about the medbay that she was _violent_ about prioritizing it? Half of him is logical: he expects dusty equipment, collapsing walls, foundational issues. Mold, perhaps. A lack of safe wiring. The other half expects Gérard to be standing in the midst of the darkness, poised with a scalpel, ready to slip its rusty edge into whatever warm throat comes near him first. 

“Check,” says Flores before hammering a small button with his thumb. The group collectively takes another step back as a mechanical click echoes into the wind. 

It is not as bright as Hanzo imagines, nor as loud. He still reflexively covers his ears as the jarring metal shriek and twisted _pop_ lift the doors out of their frame and send them flippantly spinning onto the concrete. One hangs off the hinge with a dull squeak. 

“We’re not gonna have doors for a while,” says Flores. 

The maw of the medbay is just a dark abyss that stares back at Hanzo as he tries to visually leaf through its depths. There is a moment, a collective sigh of apprehension, that follows in the atmosphere. 

Hanzo steps forward first. The lankiness in his joints is mildly unpleasant, but he is thankful for the ability to move even slightly faster. He walks into the dark with a flashlight-equipped Torbjörn on his heels. The light sweeps over much of what Hanzo predicted; dusty, decrepit waiting area with upturned cushions. Outdated magazines are scattered about the table in the center. Further ahead, cast in shadow, is a reception area. A thick coat of filth layers the desk and all other surfaces. It stirs beneath Hanzo’s soft footsteps as they ease into the darkness. 

“Welp,” Flores says. “I did the boom thing. I have a patrol, so.” He departs with unabashed eagerness. 

Vandergild idly flips through the magazines, using the spilled sunlight from the entrance to gloss over the pages. “Man, there’s stuff in here from right after the Crisis. Refugee situations. The Johannesburg thing. The omnium in Namur.” 

“Give me that,” says Hanzo when Vandergild mentions the Belgian city. The article is short, but vaguely details an explosive attack the police thought was linked to an environmentalist organization. Hanzo frowns and tears the pages out of the magazine before handing it back to Vandergild. 

There is a clanging noise and a sharp buzzing before the fluorescent lightning blinks to life above them. Hanzo strains to adjust—everything is twice as dirty when totally visible. A victory puff from Torbjörn can be heard from down the hall. 

“As always,” Torbjörn grunts from around the corner, ambling up to the rest of the group. “I got work up to my ears again.” He jerks his claw at the other engineer, who brings a short-wave up to his ear and mutters into it in Swedish. 

Anundhatta glides over to the engineer. “Please, allow me to assist you. I have already put in equipment requests to Winston.” 

“Not gonna say no an extra pair o’ hands,” Torbjörn says, muttering something Hanzo thinks might have an air of begrudging gratitude. The old man has gotten softer, too. A vague memory from his first days at Overwatch: watching Torbjörn wrench a defective omnic turret to death by smacking the energy module right off its back harness. The image of the tiny man standing with glee in his beard over the sparking, twitching corpse of one of Anundhatta’s predecessors. 

“Shi-ma-da,” Torbjörn says, presumably for the second time. 

Hanzo rolls his shoulder. “What.” 

“Come look at this.” Torbjörn’s voice has an edge to it Hanzo hasn’t heard before. He holds up a flat hand when Vandergild moves to follow, stilling the lumbering man. He frowns, but heeds. Hanzo notices as they venture down the hallway away from them that Vandergild won’t make eye contact with Anundhatta. He tables the topic, eager for the possibility that Vandergild might be present during his confrontation with Gilbert. 

An uneasiness follows Hanzo as he descends further into the medbay. The doors through which Gérard melted now destroyed, there is nowhere for the specter to hide. Hanzo grits his teeth as the soreness begins to return to his body. Anundhatta’s remedy didn’t last very long. He feels his knees lock up and his heart begin to outpace itself. 

Torbjörn comes up to a freshly closed door; the doorknob is clean. “Don’t want anyone seeing this yet. Dunno what to do with it. Saw it when I was trying to find the breaker.” 

The Swede pushes the door open. Hanzo stands agape at the room before him. 

From the floor up, Hanzo sees a tableau littered with crimson-stained pieces of paper. Beneath them there is a brown-red swatch of dried blood that sweeps methodically along the hospital tile as if someone had taken very deliberate, dragging steps. The desk in the far corner has caved in, splintered wood scattering across the floor, weighed with memories of anger. Hanzo sucks a breath in through his teeth as he eyes the chair in the center of the room. At first glance it looks like something akin to a dentist’s chair. It leans back, convexed up toward the ceiling, with a wheeled tray scooted at a haphazard angle nearby. On closer inspection, the spine of the chair has seven nodes containing discordantly shining needles that extrude ever-so-slightly from the plush fabric. 

The panic in Hanzo’s chest comes to a crescendo when his eyes meet the far wall. Painted there in the same dry crimson-brown, the insignia sends a sharp jab of icy terror all the way down Hanzo’s body. It nearly takes the place of the aching pain, but instead compounds it, exponentially increasing the archer’s discomfort. 

The winged T of Talon’s insignia is sloppily scrawled in the dry blood.

Something else about the room stings Hanzo in places he already feels the pain of the toxin. It bubbles, froths inside his stomach. Soon it is nausea, and even sooner the vomit wells up in Hanzo’s mouth. 

The sniper doubles over with his hands crossed over his stomach, frantically looking for a wastebasket. Torbjörn’s distant voice, annoyed and unconcerned, echoes nonsensically in Hanzo’s skull. Finally he locates a small trash can underneath the crumpled desk and heaves shamelessly into it, feeling every jab of agony as his stomach flips. Words escape him. 

Slowly, painfully, and for the second time in a singular week, Hanzo Shimada collapses into a distraught heap, consciousness leaving him as a flight of birds from a burning forest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First off I am ////so//// sorry for the delay on this chapter. If you're on my tumblr you know that my initial draft of this chapter was totally lost when my computer decided to shit all over my dreams. In addition to that, it was finals time. But that's over now, which means I can get back on a regular schedule and probably publish chapters MUCH faster at this point. 
> 
> Second, I also lost my outline for the rest of the story during the computer malfunction. I have 99% of it in my head, but bear with me if the chapter total suddenly changes or if there's another delay of a few days while I try to put it on paper again. 
> 
> Third, (TW: shameless plug), I just won an award for a memoir I wrote, which will be on Tumblr in its entirely pretty soon if you're interested in reading any nonfiction.


	8. Chapter 8

Winston pushes big buttons with big fingers in front of a computer console slightly off-kilter from the camera. He is in a different office during this conference, perhaps his personal one. Once Hanzo sees the empty jars of peanut butter clustered around a full wastebasket near the dismantled remains of a tesla cannon, he knows it must be true. The scientist grumbles and scratches the top of his head, stretching the silence into what feels like a millennium. 

Torbjörn clears his throat awkwardly next to Hanzo, spinning his claw idly. 

“One second, uh…” the gorilla trails off, adjusting his glasses. He pounds away at his oversized keyboard some more, and then scoots over to face the camera. “Sorry. I’ve been arguing with the UN about pulling the Grand Mesa case files. They’re um… not very nice.” 

“I coulda told ye that,” Torbjörn mutters, plopping down in an office chair. “Wrestling with ‘em took up half our time in the old days.”

“Anyway.” Winston rubs his temples. “You’re looking a little better, Hanzo.” 

“On the contrary, I just arose an hour ago,” he replies, distantly beholding the sun setting behind the dusty windows of the research lab. Another entire day completely dissolved into fever dreams and radiating aches. 

“Oh.” Winston fidgets with his glasses. “Listen, I—”

“I just cleaned dry blood off of floors and walls for hours,” growls Torbjörn around a mouthful of frayed beard. “Let’s cut to th’ chase. I need a drink.” 

“Right.” Winston thumbs a few more buttons. The screen next to him changes colors, throwing an electronic white over his features. After taking care of the collapsed defensive captain and before locking the Talon room back up, Torbjörn snapped pictures of the grisly scene for recordkeeping. “These images are unsettling, to say the least.” 

“The absolute least,” mutters Hanzo. 

“I’ve contacted Helix. According to their records, which I’ll send now, they never got the medbay open, either. Which means it’s been locked since we were shut down.” Disgruntled, Winston dips to interact with the console a few seconds longer. Hanzo and Torbjörn’s handsets beep cheerfully to signal received media. 

“A time capsule,” says the archer.

Winston snorts. “Basically.” 

“Which means something happened here before PETRAS fucked us.” Torbjörn is stroking his beard, feet up on a table, claw spinning lazily into the air.

“Yeah, and none of it is on our case files, which means the UN has got it,” replies the strike commander, leveling his head onto his open palm. “And like I said, they’re not budging.” 

“How is it they can keep our own case files from us?” Hanzo says with an edge of chagrin. 

“It’s complicated. For one, they’re essentially our parent organization. Second, repealing PETRAS came with some… conditions.” Winston sighs, visibly irritated. “First and foremost, we’re not allowed to take any leaves out of the former Overwatch’s book. As far as they’re concerned, this is an entirely separate Overwatch.” 

“That is both unhelpful and asinine,” observes Hanzo. 

“You said it, not me,” shrugs the gorilla. “We’re at a standstill from my end.” 

“Jesse has not checked in for two days,” says Hanzo with a failed attempt to suppress the heightened unease in his voice. “Which means we are, as well.” 

“Hanzo, your incident report details an old man in a wheelchair from whom Irene Janssen seemed to be taking orders. In addition, they had a few omnics in their employ, right?” Winston asks. 

“Do you have an idea of who they might be?” 

“I have a feeling the old man is Bijan Shirazi, the last of Talon’s founding members. I heard he’d been reported dead, but… you know how that’s gone lately.” Winston flings a hand through the air, a literal throwaway gesture to Seventy-Six and Reaper. “As far as the omnics go, and this is a little more disturbing than Shirazi, but based on your descriptions I’d say they were Los Muertos, which doesn’t bode well.” 

Hanzo swallows loudly, processing the information with slowed faculties. The episode after seeing the Talon insignia, and the fitful hours afterward weighed heavy on his mind. He sits now in front of the holoscreen, arms folded into the sleeves of a loose-fitting, raggedy sweatshirt. 

“Bijan Shirazi,” Torbjörn repeats thoughtfully. “I know that name.” 

“Yeah,” Winston growls. “His son Zand… wore the Doomfist.” 

“Holy shit!” Torbjörn exclaims, throwing his hands up in the air with a discordantly jovial laugh. “Probably got it out special fer you, lug!” 

“Explain,” leers Hanzo. 

“There isn’t much to explain,” sighs the gorilla. “I killed him. It was nasty.” 

Hanzo brings his hands under his chin with a solitary “hm.” 

“We done?” gruffs Torbjörn as the conversation meanders. 

“There are a couple more things I need to go over with Hanzo,” says Winston. 

“That’s my cue, then.” The engineer drags himself to his feet and out toward the door. 

Hanzo relishes for a brief moment in the coarse breeze that swings through when Torbjörn opens and closes the door. 

“Okay, Hanzo.” Winston cleans his glasses, and then looks into Hanzo’s eyes with the cold, commanding gaze he’s learned to assume quite well. “Anundhatta told me about your condition. They’re worried about the source of the contagion still being present on the Watchpoint.” 

“I understand.” Hanzo remains flat, dry. Anticipatory. 

“And I have to agree with them. I think I have the perfect opportunity to test that theory.”

Hanzo piques, raising an eyebrow. The expectation of a disciplinary remark has Hanzo shaken. 

Winston takes a deep breath. “Based on the results of McCree’s investigation, you will both either be cleared for leave or for a follow-up investigation. Maybe both.” 

Hanzo’s eye twitches. He fumbles, searching for words. All the mistakes, the confusion, the fuck-ups, and the strike commander responds with a _vacation_? “I must remain here and coordinate the defensive team.” 

“Torbjörn has turrets set up, and he’s working with Flores on another project. You’re useless to them right now anyway. We need to see about clearing you up. Distance might help.” 

“If it doesn’t?” 

“We’ll come to that if we come to that.” 

It’s Hanzo’s turn to rub his temples. “I do not understand how this is productive.” 

“It’s a good thing you don’t have to,” says Winston with a surprising amount of standoffishness. Hanzo blinks through it, peering questioningly at his superior. 

“The other thing.” Winston grabs a tablet off his desk, tapping through it with a tired expression on his face. Hanzo checks the clock—it must be close to 3 AM in Gibraltar. “I wanted to tell you that I think…” he trails off. 

Hanzo inhales to speak, but then the gorilla continues: “I think you’ve done a great job with your team. They’re responsive, organized, and efficient. I know things have been tense between us… things have just been tense in general. But uh, I… appreciate you, you know? And I personally don’t think you slipped up in Grand Junction. I think you reacted the way any of us would’ve reacted. Me especially. We all know I have control issues just like the next hyper-intelligent gorilla scientist. And it probably would’ve gone much better, too, if it weren’t for… you know.” A scratch of the neck accompanies a goofy, embarrassed grin. “Uh, um. Yeah.” 

Hanzo considers his words carefully, wholly taken aback by the entire direction the conversation has taken. Given Torbjörn’s attitude, Hanzo expected a demotion, or a request for one. And with the regret and guilt seeping through his teeth, threatening to spill over every time he pauses too long to look at it, he is wholly disoriented by the show of affection. He settles on a cold “thank you.” 

“I gotta sleep. Um. Goodnight.” Winston, over cheeks that would be bright red if they were human, reaches a long arm out to fiddle with something, then the camera shakes and finally fades to black. 

Hanzo sits in silence for a long time. One of the fluorescent lights flickers overhead, wavering between broken and fixed. 

***

Erratic bursts of sleep throughout the day have Hanzo up well into the night. He rereads the magazine article on Namur (at this point devoid of any further insight), cleans his quarters (painstakingly), and then sits below the open window, letting the cool breeze of the July dusk sweep over his harried shoulders. A hazy numbness has settled over his body, forcing his thoughts into random shots of cognition that don’t fit together or cohere. He brews a mug of tea and attempts once more to organize them. 

Hanzo recollects his questioning on Widowmaker. How did she vanish the night of her attack? Where has Talon taken her? Why did she go AWOL in the first place and why did Seventy-Six care? Where is she now? Hanzo reconsiders his recollection of the events of her first attack. The image of her burned into his memory, perched on the hood of the supply truck for that one split second. How frayed she was. How dull that sting in her eyes had become. Perhaps she didn’t vanish. Hanzo makes a note to climb the structure on top of which they fought and reexamine the surroundings. Harshly, it reminds him of the dragons, and how he’d let some nameless darkness into his heart when he summoned them. Unbeknownst to Anundhatta, part of Hanzo suspects the visage of Gérard as partly to blame. Perhaps entirely. Either way, he is sure they are connected. 

Finally his thoughts turn to the most recent development: the room in the medbay. The browned, flaky symbol of Hanzo’s currently most hated adversary in his very own territory. Shaken, he recollects his observations through the distant haze of the panic attack. Some violent altercation obviously occurred there. Perhaps Talon attacked the Watchpoint? Surely not—until the destruction of the administrative complex, the compound had been undamaged, if decayed and in disrepair. Some random, intrusive thought weight down by self-doubt: what of the possibility of some internal event? 

11:10 PM. Hanzo does a few lingering stretches, none without a searing charge of agony across whatever muscle he attempts to utilize, and then dials Genji. 

The cyborg answers almost immediately. “Brother!” 

“Hello,” says Hanzo in a voice surprisingly small. 

“Wow, Winston was not being dramatic. You sound like shit,” says Genji in a flat tone. 

“You have become terrible at salutations,” snaps Hanzo. 

“You have become sensitive without me to poke at you,” says Genji. “I am merely making up for lost time.” 

“Moving forward,” the older brother presses, “I have a few questions for you.” 

“Do you ever call to say, ‘how are you doing?’ Are you ever curious? I just went on a mission to Lijiang. I could have died.” 

“Did you? Am I speaking with a ghost?” Hanzo teases, a smile creaking up on the edge of his mouth. 

“Not funny. I will have you remember I was correct about you seeing a ghost.” Someone is speaking in the background. Hanzo recognizes the mechanical whirr of an omnic voice. 

“What is it Jesse says? The jury is still out.” 

Genji barks a startled cackle. “You have spent too much time around the cowboy.” 

Hanzo thinks, briefly, that Genji couldn’t be further from the truth. “Are you going to answer my questions?” 

“In all seriousness,” Genji suddenly turns sincere. “I was and I am very concerned for you, brother. I am also offended you did not call sooner.” 

“I do not need your pity,” Hanzo says. “When was the last time you summoned your dragon?” 

“It was in Lijiang four days ago. Why do you ask?” 

“You have not felt anything strange since?” Hanzo chews his lower lip, a bad nervous habit he picked up from Murray. 

“Brother, you are the poisoned one. Has it messed with your memories as well?” 

“Did you or did you not feel anything?” Hanzo pressures. 

Genji sighs over the phone. “No. If I felt anything dragon-related, you would be the first to know.” 

“Genji,” Hanzo says suddenly, voice trembling. “What if I lose them.” 

Genji is silent for a long time. There is a shuffle of movement, as if he is moving somewhere. Then a short burst of static as an outside gust breezes across the microphone. Hanzo tenses, the inactivity on the other line spiking an unnamed adrenaline. Finally, his brother speaks: “When I was first inducted into Overwatch, when I was first growing accustomed to this body, I could not summon mine. I was terrified. These are almost all we have left of our family. They are what remains, and I was so sure that if I ever saw you again, I would kill you. Which meant that mine was the last one. When I thought I’d lost it, brother, I became even angrier.” The cyborg pauses again. Hanzo breathes sharply. The subject sends tremors through his whole body, exacerbating the pain already present. His chest tightens. “But you know, master Zenyatta merely retaught me what I already knew. The dragons are the result of spiritual harmony, Hanzo. You already know this. You were among the first to teach it to me.” 

“This is different. I am not any angrier than usual. I am… afflicted.” Hanzo is floored by his own behavior. Seeking comfort in the words of a brother who doesn’t owe him the time of day. Trembling hands. Actual, guided, focused _fear_. No control. It shakes him to his core. 

Genji emits a patient sigh, followed by a soft chortle. “Yes. But I am in pieces, Hanzo. And I am still here. And I still have mine. We are nothing if not resilient, the two of us. I am not there. I did not feel what you felt, nor am I feeling what you are feeling now.” Genji grows softer still. “But I have faith in your power to drive this from yourself. I have told you this exactly one thousand and six times—I am keeping count—you do not deserve to suffer any longer. We have both gone through enough.” 

Static begins to build on the line. Hanzo brings the handset away from his ear for a brief second when it peaks. “I am not so sure.”

“When you speak next with Jesse, he will reaffirm what I’ve just said. You have more than two people telling you that you deserve happiness. One of them can give it to you. In more ways than one, _pardner_.” Genji begins to laugh on the other end of the line, but it sounds distant. The static builds. Hanzo looks at his phone screen. 

11:22 PM. The static crescendos into a bitter howl. 

“I will call you later. My phone is… misbehaving,” Hanzo spits quickly into the handset before hanging up. 

A rattling sound echoes throughout the hallway outside. The phone beeps with a misleading, friendly chime. As Hanzo thumbs over the notification, the screen jitters and whizzes in and out of focus. He moves with a familiar, heavy dread as he pokes around on the screen while it continues buzzing and humming with static. His heart laps up high in his chest. 

The lights flash, on and off. Rhythmic, like a heartbeat. 

The archer moves to stand, the silence suffocating in his eardrums. He goes over to the door, palms the switch. The door slides open to a pitch black hallway. The lighting in the halls of the dorm are always on, a calculation that seethes inside the archer while he steps out into the dark. 

One of the lights clicks on behind him. He wheels, measuring his steps while the blinking light gets dimmer and dimmer. The way the edge of the thrown brightness mingles with the shadow, or doesn’t, makes Hanzo’s hair stand on end. There is no gradient or blend. The light just stops. 

Something shatters in the distance. Glass. Hanzo’s imagination fills in the chorus of shards clattering to the floor. 

A door opens and closes somewhere nearby. Hanzo tries to move faster down the hall, limping and dragging alternatively numbed and tender limbs. He shoulders his way around a corner to see a door swinging shut, loud and unopposed. 

A few seconds later, there’s a yelping shout and the sound of more glass breaking.

Quick, paced breaths and heavy footfalls behind have Hanzo turning on his heel again to face a black-blanketed silhouette as the light clicks off behind him. 

“Who is it,” he says with faint apprehension. His voice sounds weak. 

“Just me.” Equally faint, the voice of Chelsea brings a mixture of relief and suspicion to a weary Hanzo. 

The archer opens his mouth to speak, and slams his lips shut once his eyes adjust to the darkness. 

“I broke them all?” Chelsea says in a steady voice. 

Hanzo remains silent, unmoving, the pain in his bones reaching a climax like metal squealing against metal. Standing inhumanly tall, placid with shining black tendrils draping just over Chelsea’s shoulders, is the shadowy visage of Gérard Lacroix. He bears a petrifying Glasgow grin, mouth hanging low and eyes wide and shiny with predatory excitement. 

Unarmed, afflicted with marrow-grinding agony, Hanzo turns to stone at the sight of the unholy obelisk perched above the woman. 

“Oh. You can see him now, can’t you?” says Chelsea almost too quiet to understand. “I thought he might leave me alone if we opened the medbay. But he hasn’t. It’s gotten worse.” Chelsea’s words come easy, nonchalant. Casual. As if they were seated over a light meal at a busy restaurant. Hanzo is further disoriented by this. He subconsciously takes a step backward when her face suddenly morphs into extreme discomfort and fear. 

“Help me,” she whispers. “If you can see him, help me.” 

Hanzo looks up at Gérard again. He has remained there, with the same expression. The beadiness in his eyes sends tremors throughout Hanzo’s body that lift the dull throb of pain to alarmingly crippling levels. He fishes around in the pocket of his sweatpants for the short-wave. 

Gérard twists suddenly, stretching lanky arms up toward the ceiling.

“I think he knows you can see him,” Chelsea whispers. There are tears rolling down her cheeks now.

With a hoarse screech whose vocals eke out only in the last millisecond, Gérard falls over Chelsea as a curtain, triggering the vague memory of Hanzo’s nightmare days before. 

Sleepy engineers begin clumsily filtering out of their rooms to follow the sound. He hears the doors below fly open as his team rushes to respond to the noise. Mumurs of broken mirrors and intruders fill Hanzo’s ears. 

He will not fail to act. Ever again. Straining against the suffering in his body, he darts a hand out toward the shadow. Before he can even make contact, it vanishes with a disgusting, wet _pop_ , and Chelsea slumps to the floor. The silence, too, recedes as the defeated woman takes one violent, shuddering sigh into unconsciousness. 

Hanzo finally finds the short-wave in his pants and hisses Christen’s name into the microphone. 

As if called to whatever subspace exists beneath the floor panels, the extra-thick shadows recede, and the hallway lights flicker back on. They shine fluorescent over the figure of Chelsea, a crumpled heap, illuminating the sickness in her features and the sunkenness of her eyes. As Vandergild rounds the corner, Hanzo sees echoes of his own condition in hers. Or maybe, the sullen archer thinks, it is the other way around. 

***

Watching Anundhatta’s procedures from another point of view fascinates Hanzo. They twitch their hands, smoothing imaginary sheets in the air above their patient. Chelsea purrs quietly in a deep sleep below the glowing, robotic appendages. Christen stands off to the side next to the omnic, muttering rushed words and scribbling furiously into a small notebook. 

The medbay has been spot-cleaned, but is by no means functional. Hanzo takes an irresistible peek at the hallway leading to the locked room as Christen carries Chelsea into an adjoining one. Random cabinets lie in neat, orderly fashion. Fully stocked with (no doubt expired or even obsolete) packets, vials, and jars of medication, they sit polished and sterile high above orderly shelves in a stark contrast to the locked room. 

The official incident report will detail that Chelsea, once again acting out of character, broke into multiple quarters, broke only the bathroom mirrors, and left. She used a gloved fist, which barely helped against the broken glass (her left hand twitches with numerous, slotted red streaks). When Hanzo found her she was cognizant, but terrified. She lost consciousness after that. 

What the report won’t detail is the shuddering figure of death perched on her shoulders. Its contorted grin and wet eyes. 

Chelsea’s breaths become a little more ragged as time moves onward. Christen injects her with something Hanzo doesn’t have the time to read before the syringe is tossed into a wastebasket. 

“It is as I hypothesized,” says Anundhatta calmly, but with a edge barely noticeable above the soothing crackle of their voice box. “She has a similar affliction to yourself, Mr. Shimada. It affects her in a different way. Since she doesn’t have the same windows, if you’ll forgive the simple metaphor, that you have open, it does not manifest itself physically the way it has with you.” 

Proof. Hanzo takes a sharp breath. “Then whatever is causing it is either related to or entirely consisting of the visage we have been seeing.” 

“As a doctor I would have to say that remains to be substantiated,” Anundhatta soothes. “But, if you did see what you say, that would appear to be the case.”

With finality: “it must be eliminated.” 

Christen tucks the notebook into his back pocket. “How do we go about doing that?” 

“All three times the visage has been reported,” Hanzo says over a gruff sigh as he painstakingly lowers himself into a chair, “it was around 11:30 PM. I think it is appearing at the same time.” 

Anundhatta raises a hand. “If I may.” 

Hanzo gestures openly, leaning back in the office chair. 

“The crucial distinction is why the visage appears attached to Mrs. Begay. If it is truly connected to your dual afflictions, it could easily do the same to you. So why hasn’t it?” 

Hanzo thinks of Chelsea poised, uncharacteristic and feral, with the two-handed wrench. The primordial rage in her eyes as she took the swing at Torbjörn. He shudders inwardly at the thought of someone trained to kill losing their agency in that fashion. Someone like himself. 

Suddenly the vague echoes of nightmares stir in the back of his head. “Perhaps it has been trying.” 

“Perhaps. I do not think it will succeed, however.” Anundhatta changes hand positions and presses a brighter glow into Chelsea’s chest, eliciting a small spasm and a subconscious groan. “This woman has an affinity for the spiritual, that much is clear. But she has not honed that affinity, nor funneled it into a specific skillset like yourself, Mr. Shimada. Although you cannot currently use them, your dragons may be the only thing keeping you from a similar mental state.” 

“They are suffering in my stead,” he breathes, tinged with anguish. 

Anundhatta doesn’t answer directly. They fold their hands back into their sleeves, head inclined in Chelsea’s direction. “A good night’s rest is the only next step we can take for her. I will be here when she wakes in the morning. Please, take the remainder of the night and rest yourselves.” 

The night is balmy with a chill breeze outside. With the shadows, a good deal of Hanzo’s crippling apprehension has withdrawn. He takes a second, fills his lungs with the coolness of the breeze. Like a therapy pack, it eases the hot, dark ache in his extremities, making his joints feel looser and a little freer. Somehow, knowing his enemy and placing information into existing queries as opposed to creating new ones also releases some of the weight on his mind. If only the cowboy would call. If only the rich soothe of his voice over the phone speaker could end the night. The twang on the end of his words which would perhaps run together some over an alcoholic haze. Maybe there would be gunshots in the background and he’d have to hang up in an emergency. Maybe he’d be singing some simply-worded country jingle shamelessly in public. 

It is well past midnight. Hanzo limps side by side with Christen as they make their way back toward the dorms. 

“So, what’s your plan with this thing?” asks Christen carefully. 

“I will test the visage for response to stimuli.” 

“You’re gonna shoot at it,” Christen says around a grin. “What a subtle approach, boss.” 

“I am in hardly a condition to shoot anything.” Hanzo grumbles. 

Christen gives a downward and dejected sigh. 

“Murray will shoot at it.” 

Hanzo’s phone rings. One passing glance at the screen has Hanzo double-taking and viciously attempting to quell the pillow of relief that surges in his chest. Christen snorts awkwardly after a nosy look. 

The archer brings the handset to his ear, speaking before it even flushes with his cheek. 

“Jesse.” 

“No,” comes an older, female voice on the other end. “Try again.” 

Hanzo’s heart leaps into his throat, blanching. He snaps his fingers at Christen, mouthing for Torbjörn. “Who is this. Where is Jesse.” 

A soft giggle ekes out of the phone’s speaker. Hanzo broils, teeth grinding. “He is here. Did you know that your name has a little heart next to it in his telephone? Cute, but out-of-character. What have you done to him?” The woman speaks with an accent Hanzo can’t place. It certainly isn’t French. 

“Who. Are. You,” grits Hanzo, spittle forming on the edge of trembling lips. 

“A friend. A very good friend, at that.” There is a snort. “Are you operating out of that old patch of dirt in Grand Junction still?” 

“If you do not answer my question, you will awaken with a hole in your chest.”

A heinous laugh. “I am not scared of children. You are nothing like your beloved. How can one so charming love someone so nasty? You answer me first. Are you still at Grand Mesa?” 

“I have no time for this. Either put Jesse on or I will come and find him.” The ever-familiar presence of cold hatred presses on Hanzo, this time with the added spasm of dark pain that seizes his insides. 

“Your beloved is asleep. I made sure of it. Now is not the best time to wake him. I have a message for you.”

“I trust you know what you are getting into by doing this,” he seethes. 

“It’s from Jack.” 

Hanzo freezes. A dusting of frigid hate saturates his voice. “What do you want.” 

The woman barks another laugh. “I knew that would get your attention. Who taught you to negotiate?” 

“You are Seventy-Six’s sniper support. You are the only reason I didn’t kill him a month ago.” The chagrin tightens with the observation. 

She becomes hesitant, wary. Hanzo has trespassed. “I take care of him, yes.” 

“I know you.” 

“You know nothing.”

Hanzo buckles. At the very least, Jack Morrison wouldn’t kill Jesse himself. And if Jesse was correct about her identity, neither would she. “What is the message.” 

“What you’re looking for is where he is. McCree knows where to go. Helix at Trinity.” 

Hanzo fumbles with a taken aback “what?” but the call drops with a sinister _click_. 

***

Dawn approaches on Hanzo’s enfeebled mentality far too quickly. He squints into the budding sunlight and swings the window shut on the early heat. Too soon after he achieves full consciousness, the affliction returns. It sears his insides once more, and even after the cocktail of pills and fluids, he moves sluggish and dissociative like a drunken sloth. After a struggle of a shower, he dresses once more in loose-fitting clothing and limps out into the empty hallway. 

The commotion is thick and ambient in the distance. The renovation of the medbay has begun. With it, new turret installations and the soon-to-be implementation of whatever program Torbjörn cooked up with his demolitions expert. After seeing the plans laid out during a meeting with Torbjörn (during which the comms intruder believed to be Ana Amari came up more than once), Hanzo feels a little more confident about leaving the Watchpoint for an extended period of time. Another topic covered in the meeting was a silver lining that had come about the destruction of the administrative complex: one less building to renovate. With that in mind, completion of the renovation has ben rescheduled for the beginning of October. 

The sky is partially overcast. The promise of a summer rainstorm encourages Hanzo a little. He hopes the rain will be a cool and comforting antithesis to the unstoppable heat and pain. Hanzo gaits his way to the medbay, each step a goal, under a sky colored with a muddled blue-gray. 

Thankfully, the hustle-and-bustle is easily avoidable and Hanzo slips through busy engineers under Torbjörn’s loud grunts to Chelsea’s room. Inside, the woman lays with dead eyes up at the ceiling. Anundhatta sits nearby with a small book poised in one lifted hand. A recently-installed holoscreen quietly murmurs reports of gunfire and murder in downtown Grand Junction. The sliding banner across the top asks about Overwatch and domestic terrorism. 

Chelsea remains silent as Hanzo plops down next to her with palms on his thighs.. She turns her head ever-so-slightly at his presence, but her gaze remains affixed to the ceiling. 

“How are you feeling,” he says, withdrawn. Numb. 

She shrugs in her newly acquired hospital gown. 

Anundhatta sets the book down on the counter. “The affliction accosts her through her dreams. Despite sedation, she has made a point to refuse sleep.” 

Hanzo simmers in silence for a few seconds. After a beat: “I have dreams about him, too.” 

That gets her attention. She swings her whole torso in his direction and locks eyes with the archer. Something in hers is muddy and wet, as if she is constantly on the verge of tears. “What are they like?” She is weak in conviction and her voice trembles, quiet and hoarse. 

“My apologies. I should not say dreams. They are nightmares.” 

“Me, too. I have dreams where he kills my husband and becomes him.” Fresh tears well up in her eyes. 

Hanzo’s chest tightens. “Same.” 

“He won’t leave me alone.”

A heavy sigh. “Same.”

She considers for a moment, taking in whatever dessert commercial is flashing across the holoscreen. “I’m sorry.” 

“You have not wronged me.” 

“I have.” She actually sits up now, with no small effort. “I have. I’ve wronged everyone. Something was wrong and I didn’t say anything. Even when Ari…” she trails off, sucking her bottom lip into her teeth like an embittered child. 

“I did not come here to talk about what you did,” Hanzo says, a ghost of one of his first conversations with Genji. “I came to talk about what we are going to do.” 

“Huh?” 

Hanzo rides his sweatpants up around his ankles and stretches his legs. He holds up two fingers. “First, the shadow is drawn to you. We are going to use you to try and trap it and test it for stimuli.” 

Chelsea frowns and gathers her blankets up around her waist. 

“Second.” Hanzo begins to pace around her bed. Anundhatta folds their arms silently in the corner. “I want to know why you thought the medbay might make it leave.” 

“I—I don’t know. I just… somewhere I knew this place was the answer. Obviously I was incorrect,” she scoffs at herself and lays back down. 

“I am not so sure.” He taps his fingers on his chin. “Can you walk?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Follow me.” 

Hanzo takes a momentary glance at Anundhatta, who waves him off with a polite gesture and moves to stand. “I have other matters, anyway. Please excuse me.” 

They depart from Chelsea’s room after Anundhatta gathers up some discarded supplies and disposes of them. The omnic heads up toward the front area, gesturing at Torbjörn. Meanwhile the archer takes Chelsea around the corner to the locked door from the previous days. He rests a hand on the doorknob, hesitant. “I do not mean to rush you.”

“You want answers,” Chelsea replies. “So do I.” 

Hanzo brings the heel of his palm down hard on the doorknob, cracking the fake wood around it and jamming it out of place. Briefly he relishes in that he can still do _something_. He shoulders and elbows the door open with a rough jab, revealing the disturbing sight to Chelsea. 

The blood has been mostly cleaned off the floors and walls. Scattered papers have been collected (and presumably read to find no relevant information) and random tools and broken glass organized or cleaned up. What still remains: the twisted, sloppy Talon logo, although viciously scrubbed, is still partially visible. The bizarre chair-device sits mysterious and eerie in the center. Inviting. Cabinet doors still rest off their hinges. The wall safe still sits curiously in the shelf. 

“What is this?” Chelsea says, rushed and wide-eyed. 

“I do not know. I… fainted upon first entering this room.” 

Chelsea takes stock. Her eyes flit uncomfortably past the chair and Talon logo, and lock on the wall safe. 

“What’s in there?” 

Hanzo gives a noncommittal shrug in response, frowning into the closed window blinds that cast bars of skinny light across newly polished hospital tile. She clambers up to it, pressing pudgy fingers into a touch screen. It beeps angrily. Wrong password. 

“Cease, you will get us locked out of it permanently,” Hanzo snips. 

“What else are we gonna do? You can’t crack these. If they open without the code, the contents get incinerated. You can see the propane hookup in the back.” Chelsea smugly thrusts fingers behind the safe, waggling her eyebrows. 

“Your attitude certainly has changed, if our condition has not,” Hanzo says over a bemused smirk. 

“What’s a code old Overwatch would’ve had?” Chelsea scratches her head. 

“A better question: what code would Gérard Lacroix have used?” The sniper strokes his beard thoughtfully, parsing information as rapidly as possible.

The crux lies with Gérard’s relationship with Amélie. Widowmaker and the shadow. That’s what brought him here. That has to be what brought her here. Hanzo fumbles, trying to come up with a number that would symbolize that. 

“What in shit all are ye two goons doing in here?” Torbjörn spits as he rounds the corner with fists balled on tiny hips. “Shimada, ye coulda just asked fer the key. Now I can’t keep anyone outta here.” 

“When was Amélie Lacroix’s birthday?” Hanzo asks urgently, pushing the head engineer off-balance. 

“Uhh, hell if I know. I think it was in November er December. Took leave to Aix-en every year, if I recall.” 

November. Hanzo flits between conclusions for a moment while Torbjörn continues asking after their presence here. He makes some hand signal to Chelsea, who shakes her head with gusto. 

Suddenly Hanzo pushes past Chelsea and thumbs some keys on the safe. After a breathless moment of anticipation, it clicks and beeps cheerfully. Accepted. “Once more, your nosy disposition is more advantageous than it should be.” 

“Holy shit,” Chelsea breathes. “What was it?” 

“Eleven twenty-two.” 

There are several more whirring noises before the miniscule door swings open. Hanzo peeks in to gloss over the contents: a bundle of holodiscs and a vial full of neon-purple liquid. 

“Eh?” Torbjörn inquires, impatient. 

“Holodiscs. And… this.”

He hands the vial over to the head engineer, who swirls it above his bearded face. It catches the light in a strange way—not transparent, but subtly opaque. Some separated substance swirls about reflective patterns within. 

“What is that?” Chelsea asks. 

Torbjörn gives a furtive shrug and plops the vial into her hands. “Get it te Shara fer testing. She should be able te tell us.” 

“Roger.” Chelsea moves out of the room with some sense of renewed vigor and energy. As she hits the threshold, she stops and turns toward Hanzo. After a moment of silence: “thank you.” 

Hanzo nods in a curt fashion.

“Eh?” Torbjörn repeats, gesturing after Chelsea. 

“We have come to terms over our… mutual affliction,” answers Hanzo distantly. 

Torbjörn gives another shrug. “Any word from… her?” 

“No. You will be the first to know.” Hanzo shuffles quietly out of the room with the bundle of holodiscs under his arm, bending under the weight of the increasing soreness. 

***

The evening, unsurprisingly, sears. Fortunately, the clouds have formed around the sun in a pillowy embrace, offering whatever little shelter they can. They don’t have bulges or shadows of moisture, much to Hanzo’s disappointment. Hanzo sits with the holodiscs on the bench outside the dorms. He wishes he was there to smoke or drink, turning a bitter cheek to the fact that he simply hadn’t made it as far as his own quarters. 

“Don’t you hate how this area won’t make up its mind?” comes the squeamish voice of Murray, shouldered with Flores and Vandergild. 

“Do you not have patrols at 8:00?” Hanzo says into the distance. 

“I know what you mean,” Vandergild says gruffly. He holds a bottle of Maker’s Mark in one hand by the neck. “One second, it’s dry and hot, and the next second it looks like it’s about to look like an elephant pissing.” 

Flores lights a cigarette. “Anyway, despite how much boss loves small talk, let’s cut to the chase.” 

Vandergild sticks the bottle out to Hanzo, who snorts and lifts his chin. 

“Oh, right. Sorry.” 

Hanzo raises a hand to wave him off. “I will, however, take one of those.” He gestures toward Flores, who hurriedly unboxes his cigarettes and offers one with outstretched fingers. 

Murray is the last to sit. Hanzo finally notices, thin lips wrapped around the butt of an unlit cigarette, that she has something behind her. A long, straight pole tipped with a brass cap. A cane? 

“For the record,” Flores says, following Hanzo’s gaze with his own, “she dragged us along on her own idea. So.” 

“For me?” Hanzo says faintly. 

“Uh, Flores and Captain Torbjörn have been scouting in the woods… they found this really weird aspen tree.”

She hefts the cane in her hand. Polished, shining white speckled with frosted marks of black ash. It reaches a cone at the bottom, smoothed out but stable. And the top is dusted with gilded paint. 

“We had finish from the renovation supplies, and the brass tip I made from an old doorknob.” 

Flores lights Hanzo’s cigarette. He sucks in the ashy, harsh flavor. It does nothing to quell the turmoil in his stomach nor the pain in his limbs, but the nicotine rush is a welcome reprieve nonetheless. He turns again toward the vista. 

“Aw, you pissed him off. I told you this was a bad idea.” Flores snatches the Maker’s Mark from the husky mountain sitting next to him. 

Hanzo once again holds up a hand. 

“Anundhatta said it’d probably be preferable to trying the limp. He gave us your measurements.” Murray steps forward and offers it to the defensive captain, outstretched arms peeking out of the low-hanging folds of Hardy’s jacket. 

“I only did it because I need you back to work soon,” comments Vandergild. 

Murray shoots him a cold glare before edging the cane closer to Hanzo. “We all made it together. Torbjörn included.” 

Hanzo’s fingers tremble ever so slightly as he eyes Murray and the cane from the side. He wraps a hesitant hand around the cane and balances it on the concrete. Slowly he leans upwards, putting more and more of his weight on his palm against the brass end. He drinks in his subordinates’ gazes: Flores with a satisfied smirk. Vandergild puffed up and head to the side. Murray with a full, sunset-lit toothy grin. 

“It is better than crutches,” says the captain. 

“Never pegged you for a pimp cane kinda guy,” Flores says. “It looks good on you.” 

“Not so much a pimp as a babysitter,” teases Hanzo, jutting his chin in Flores’ direction. After a pause, he hefts the holodiscs in his hand. “Thank you.” 

“No sweat,” says Murray. “We got the feeling you were under the impression you were alone, so.” 

Hanzo exhales a cloud of smoke and flicks the ash off the end of the cigarette. “I do not know what to say.” 

“We’re retreating. This is awkward enough as it is.” Flores says, tugging on Vandergild’s elbow. 

“No, I must go and review these.” He feels his face getting hot. Turning on a heel, and taking full advantage of the extra leverage of the cane, hurries away toward the dorms. 

The intimacy shakes him, and the pain returns full-force. His knees bend and he slumps toward the hallway in the dorms, eye twitching with frustration. They must have worked for days on the object to which he now applies most of his weight. The bond feels almost familial, perched against a simple object that brought so much out of him. Combined with the anxiety, the exhaustion, and the pain, it’s enough to form at the corner of his vision. Blurred tears gather on his eyelid, roll down his cheek, and patter against his shoes. Some are caught in the hairs of his beard, itching and irritating. 

_Get your shit together,_ murmurs a voice in the back of Hanzo’s head. The voice of the tatami stained with his brother’s blood. The voice in hollow wind as he fired arrows upon him for the second time. The voice he sometimes hears in the nightmares, toiling deep beneath Gérard’s howling screeches to exacerbate the terror and increase the tension. 

The archer squares his jaw, rolls his shoulder against the opposite flow of the discomfort. He enters his quarters, tossing the bundle of holodiscs onto the bed and clambering for his hot plate. He chokes down another handful of medication and starts tea brewing. The shine of the holodiscs against the pale white of his sheets catches his eye numerous times. _What’s the hold up?_ He turns them in his hands. They’re numbered, one through fourteen. He picks through them to find the first, and clips it to the holoscreen in the corner. 

Hanzo sits on the bed, cradling the fresh tea in his hands and scooting against the wall. The screen buzzes and flickers, and then settles to a dread-inducing and yet unsurprising image: Gérard sits, young and lively, at an office chair in the robotics laboratory. The bustle behind him is strangely nostalgic even though Hanzo wasn’t here for Grand Mesa in its prime. Further, Gérard’s face is younger and full of excitement in dissonance with his beaten, drawn features in the picture and in the archer’s dreams. Before Hanzo even fully processes the realization that this is physical proof Gérard was at Grand Mesa, the young scientist leans into the camera and begins speaking. 

“Briefing log one. I’m um… not sure how to do these. Never had a job that required briefing logs before.” He grins, lips stretched wide over thick teeth. He speaks confidently with conviction, and his accent is certainly a presence although rather thin. “As head of the task force against Talon, I elected to tour the weapons development facility here. So when I heard we were getting this material, it was an absolutely joyous occasion for both myself and Amélie. She is on the next flight in.” He picks the camera up and focuses it on the facility behind him. “The place is state-of-the-art, perfect to work on this. Jack hasn’t decided whether or not to keep it under wraps, so I’ll record these in case I ever get to make it public. I’m surprised he decided to go with it. Anyway, this is Director—”

Hanzo fast-forwards the holodisc as Gérard introduces a few anonymous faces and tours the facility Hanzo has already seen eight years in the future. Soon, the holodisc ends with a salutary sign-off from Gérard, who faces the camera once again with a goofy grin. Hanzo sighs and loads up the next three holodiscs before ambling back to the bed. Gérard begins again with more mundane talk. When he comes outside and begins crossing toward the junction of the medbay and dorms, Hanzo plays again. 

“We’re going to see it now. I can’t believe the Pentagon just handed it over.” 

“It is a marvel of nano technology. They would be selfish to keep it,” says a voice off-screen. It sends pinpricks down Hanzo’s spine. He’s heard this voice before. Maybe? And then: definitely. Amélie dances into view, skin healthy and tanned with piercing green eyes. 

“Given their track record, I wouldn’t be surprised,” says Gérard with a note of solemnity. They enter the cleanly and new medbay, organized and fully-staffed. Hanzo balks at the sight of the Watchpoint as a fully-operational entity. Employees run to and fro—they even appear to have a custodial team. They walk past the entry hall in a direction that makes Hanzo increasingly uncomfortable. Finally, they come to it. The room with the safe where Hanzo found the very discs. To no small surprise, the chair-device is not there. Instead there is a counter with a metallic object at rest upon it. 

“Is this it?” Amélie says, hefting up a large, metallic cylinder into the sunlight. It blinds the camera for a moment, causing Gérard to adjust and try to focus on the lettering pasted to the front in red letters on a white label.

BIOHAZARD: CONTENTS BARRED BY FBI. POSSESSION WITHOUT AUTHORIZATION A FELONY  
SPECIMEN 9090-SEP-FTS59

“This is rather anti-climactic, Gérard,” says Amélie in a flat tone.

“Open it,” replies Gérard with a hurried voice. 

Amélie twists the handle of the cylinder, releasing a puff of hazy moisture. She slides the tube open, revealing a smaller, transparent tube beneath. The inside swirls with a thin strand of some bluish, slightly reflective substance. “Wow. Real, bona fide nano-webbing,” she says in a voice of complete wonderment. 

“Yeah, so for those of you watching who don’t know, the Pentagon—the Soldier Enhancement Program specifically—handed our R&D team the very last functioning sample of the nano-webbing they used in the Program. This stuff is what made Morrison and Reyes practically invulnerable.” 

Hanzo leans forward in shock. 

“Reyes decided it’d probably be a good asset against Talon, so long as we don’t use it on people. I guess Morrison agreed?” 

“Reyes can be persuasive. Specifically with _that_ one,” gossips Amélie, covering her mouth. She twitches for a second suddenly, eyes glazing over and losing focus momentarily. 

“Ame?” Gérard says, placing the camera. Amélie shuts the specimen back into its canister and places it back on the counter. She takes a few stumbling steps forward as Gérard comes into view behind her. 

She falls. Gérard shouts after her and follows. The image on the screen buzzes with a flicker of static. He balances over her on the floor, asking after her in French with a concerned tone. A hiss comes over the speakers, and at the same time, Hanzo’s vision blurs. 

He switches the holoscreen off in a panic, stretching against the sheets. Whatever the video triggered subsides slowly, falling off of Hanzo like sheets of silk. As his vision clears, he ponders what he’d just seen. If he watches the rest of the holodiscs, what will he see? Will the nano-webbing become part of this whole twisted scenario? The condition Winston mentioned that Amélie came down with seems to have already taken effect. In the end, the conclusion is obvious. This was filmed during the time the happy couple were “officially” in Beijing. Which points to subterfuge, and reinforces the piqued thought Hanzo had earlier that this is an internal affair. 

For some bizarre reason, as Hanzo embraces sleep with eager arms and eyes the cane sitting against the bedframe, Murray’s words ring above everything else. As if, despite the recent discoveries or his and Chelsea’s sickness, one realization kicks in louder than the others. It rings above his previously fixed state of consciousness, one of guilt. One of isolation. 

He wonders, precariously, carefully, that maybe she’s right. Maybe after all this time, and even with Jesse away, he’s not trapped. 

He’s not alone.


	9. Chapter 9

Gérard folds his hands in front of his face. Sweat beads up on the ridges of his furrowed upper brow as he glares dismally into the camera. A clashing dash of sunlight streaks the shelves of books behind him, as the room is otherwise blanketed by a musty darkness. His eyes dart downward for a few seconds. Considering. Parsing.

After a dull pang of silence that throbs through the speakers, he begins: “the most wretched of things don’t happen during important events. They don’t happen in the rain or over a dramatic phone call. They don’t happen immediately after that—what is the word—foreboding feeling crosses your chest and you have one of those…” he twirls a hand through the air dismissively with an upturned nose, “ _shitty_ days. No. 

“The most wretched of things happen in the middle of a Wednesday afternoon whilst you sit on your couch watching television and eating stew out of an oversized mug.” Gérard punctuates with a self-assured nod. “They don’t happen in the middle of fun science projects or at the advent of new jobs.” Satisfied with his soliloquy, he sits back, face temporarily lit by the shaft of sunlight. It reveals a dark wrinkle across his features, a tiredness that only exists in a few sparse situations. A dreadful exhaustion, one that might leave permanent melancholy on those who experience it. 

He leans forward. The light rolls off his face, and he merely looks dulled once more. And then, as if the video had just started, his expression brightens and the jawed air of academia settles over his shoulders. 

“Nano-webbing,” he begins, straightening his collar, “has more than a few practical applications. Bonded properly to another complex molecular structure, it can re-solidify, reform, and wholly reproduce damaged or lost material. It can also reinforce said material, copy and expand it, and, drawing from its applications in quantum physics, even move materials from one space to another or reshape their chemistry entirely.” 

He clears his throat again, thumbing on a nearby holoscreen. It shows a video of a team of masked scientists pulling the ethereal, pale blue matter out of its container and using some sort of light-based contraption to separate one of its smoky, writhing strands. 

“Only a few cases of successful bonding with human anatomy have been recorded. Two of them run Overwatch. Anyway, it appears these effects are a lot more… subtle on human beings than they are on inanimate objects. This,” he produces a small sheet of glass from his pocket, “has been bonded to a single strand of nano-webbing, which, as this misleading video doesn’t show you, is about a thousand atoms thick.” 

Gérard levels the glass in his hand, and then brings it down onto the table with a loud _crack_. Outright childlike glee blooms in his face as he proudly offers the cracked pane to the camera. A few short seconds later, the crack flashes blue and begins to shrink toward the center until it has vanished completely. 

“And that’s all I’ve managed to figure out. Imagine the applications. Not just for… war,” he makes a disgusted face at the end of the sentence. “For _medicine_. Human and non-human. Imagine what I could’ve done with this when I was still an eco-terrorist,” he snickers to himself. 

“The nano-webbing still has a lot of mysteries associated with it. Which is why I’ve put a formal ban on the application of it with human beings. In fact, I’m not sure who sanctioned the use of it by SEP in the first place, but they were—how do you say—hare-brained. This stuff… operates on a level I can’t even fathom. Some people are saying it _speaks_ to them like they know what it wants to be used for. Obviously I’ve placed them on other projects.” 

His glasses slip down his nose. He readjusts them, ducking away from the camera. When he faces it again, the melancholy has reappeared, warping his face into a dismaying caricature. 

“The vilest of things don’t happen when you’ve just received a promotion. They happen when nothing is happening. They happen because the universe is bored. They don’t happen when you are at the threshold of a new, erm, _era_ of discovery. When you’ve been granted access to the most advanced substance on the planet. They don’t happen hours after your partner’s plane touches down so that you can be a husband and a strike team leader at the same time what is that expression? Having a cake and eating it too?” He rushes the last sentence together, takes a moment to pause and gather his breath. “They happen in the middle of your knitting project.” Suddenly he sniffles and there is a wrenching, sharp agony in his moistened eyes. The edges of his mouth tug down, lips trembling. Cheeks flushed. Imploring. Pleading. 

“Right?”

***

Hanzo goes through and checks them off. Both arms, both legs. Chest. Torso, pelvis. Toes and fingers. The nose. Eyes, obviously, as he scans the room and finds himself unable to tear his gaze away from the holoscreen, transparent and lifeless in the morning light. Mouth, just as obvious, as he flicks his sandy tongue against the bony back of his teeth and wheezes a poof of dry air. Everything is here. 

Why can’t he feel any of it? 

He lifts a hand, rests it in the air right in front of his face. Pearly white, paler than usual. Some might say deathly. It reflects all of the sunray that streams in through an open window. Swallowing no light, rejecting it all like a failed organ transplant. He feels no heat or skin-on-skin sensation as he brings the tips of his fingers to his cheek. Numb. No ice-to-ice or ice-to-fire. No rippling, spinal anguish. 

He glances at the clock. 10 AM. Another late-starting day filled with struggling movement and no exercise. He begins to feel the loss of muscle mass in his legs and arms. He hasn’t fired a shot in days. Storm Bow sits, un-calibrated, unused, gathering dust in its case next to the holoscreen in the corner of his quarters. 

Extremities still loose and numb, rubbery with the perceived texture of a used napkin, Hanzo fights his way off the bed and sluggishly drags his feet toward the restroom. Is this the new chapter of his sickness? To feel nothing, as opposed to bitter, searing agony? It is almost worse; he turns the hot water up past scalding and watches his skin turn bright red with no reaction. Dragging his toothbrush across his teeth feels like an ancient pulley system drawing water from a well. Water hydrates his cotton mouth but offers no reprieve for the hot, hollow lump in his chest and throat. 

He stares out the window stark naked, watching Grand Mesa begin to bake. Heat rises up from humid pine branches in waves. The wind remains a cool blast of freshness, carrying an amalgam of scents from the mess hall as the Watchpoint begins its day. Soon the sounds of drills will bounce in from the other end of the compound. Soon the heat will force Hanzo to remain inside, communicating with his team via shortwave. Sending patrol schedules out via Vandergild. E-mailing memos as if he lives on the top floor of an ivory-tower with a 5-figure salary and all his employees wear the same tired, scratchy suits. Hanzo smiles inwardly at the thought of Vandergild trying to squeeze his way into fitted attire. 

He checks his phone. Today is the day. His heart in his throat, he rereads the process docket from Torbjörn and Chelsea. They will attempt their assault on Gérard tonight. 

As if on cue, the phone buzzes. 

\---  
[FROM: TORBJÖRN]  
Medbay  
\---

Hanzo’s lips creak upwards at the edges in response to the textual succinctness that may as well rival his own. 

While the heat bears down on him now, Hanzo looks with excitement toward the clouds in the distance, pregnant and dark and teeming with moisture. He sniffs idly into the breeze, hoping for the lurid scent of promised rain, but finds nothing. 

Anundhatta sits cross-legged and silent in a corner of the waiting room while Torbjörn’s team presumably knocks old, molded walls down in order to build new ones. The sound is harsh, loud, and grates on Hanzo’s already fragile nerves. He assumes an exasperated grimace as he enters through the newly installed double-doors. The head doctor does not change position when Hanzo enters the room. They hover just above their seat, hands poised thoughtfully and chin lifted into the air. 

“How are you feeling?” Anundhatta asks, curative, without moving any portion of their body. 

“I cannot tell if this is a permanent change,” Hanzo answers, “but the pain has become a sort of numbness.” 

He finds himself growing accustomed the omnic’s presence more and more every day. In fact, the awkward transition has died off into a few shaded, dicy looks from anonymous members of both restoration teams. Gilbert remains consistently on the opposite side of the compound from Anundhatta at all times. Hanzo sours imagining any other tense interaction between the two, resigning himself to avoid the situation until his lover can get his manipulative hands on the situation. 

Anundhatta settles, lowering into their seat and unfolding their legs. 

“I am impressed that you can meditate with all this noise,” Hanzo comments. 

“Between you and myself,” Anundhatta says in a lighthearted tone, “sometimes I merely turn off my audial receptors. Upper echelon Shambali consider it cheating—in a loose sense of the word. But I say one should obtain silence wherever one can find it.” 

Hanzo smiles. “I agree.” 

“The numbness, is it as if your extremities have, ‘fallen asleep?’” Anundhatta asks, moving to stand. 

“No.” Hanzo picks through the sensation for a moment. “It is a rubberiness. As if I have been dosed with anesthesia.” 

“I see. That is probably not an improvement, but it’s hard to say. It pains me to say this, Mr. Shimada, but I’m afraid we still only have the option of waiting and observing both yourself and Chelsea.” Anundhatta folds their hands together. “I will schedule another inspection with you once I have an office. It shouldn’t be more than three or four days.” They bow, slightly, and then straighten, tilting their head sympathetically. 

“I understand,” Hanzo deadpans, looking past Anundhatta to the emerging figure of Torbjörn from around an unlit corner. On his tail is a tall, slender woman. Older, maybe in her fifties, with brown green eyes and sunbaked skin. She appears maybe Taiwanese, with a wider face and and a rich, olive complexion. 

“Shimada, this ‘s Shara Lai. She’s our resident chemist,” says the engineer, gesturing hurriedly between the two with a rapid spin of the claw. “Tell ‘im.” 

Shara smiles and offers an outstretched hand. Hanzo takes it with the hand free of his cane. A silent interaction, but genuine, as her eyes match the smile and her posture is one of confidence and respect, with a little opportunistic valor behind it. 

“Hello, Mr. Shimada,” she says. “It is quite good to meet you.” Straightforward and direct, she speaks with a heavy accent—definitely tinged with Mandarin. Hanzo spent a great deal of time in Taipei as a vagrant assassin; memories of the city flourish in his mind with her accent. Some are gray and bitter, removed, tinged with the kind of crimson that would still unavoidably mix with the dark, stained tatami in his dreams. He smiles to himself, wry but nostalgic. 

“Greetings,” he offers, suddenly running low on energy. 

She nervously bustles into her labcoat with a balled up hand and produces a test tube of the shining, violet liquid from the safe. “I have analyzed their contents,” she says, suddenly sing-song and bubbly.

“And?” Hanzo says expectantly, raising an eyebrow. 

Shara stares off into space for a second, blinking into nothing. Hanzo rapidly blinks back, suddenly feeling intrusive and awkward. 

Torbjörn elbows her in the side. She starts, widens her eyes. “Oh, sorry. This is a compound of substances. One of the major identifiable substances was animal venom, although I’m not sure from what type of animal. Another major part of the compound was colloidal silver. Do you know what that is?” 

“It is an agent that usually comes in a tincture and is used to treat a variety of symptoms, if I am not mistaken,” Hanzo replies. 

“Correct. Many people use colloidal silver simply to boost their immune system or to fight off a sinus infection. It doesn’t usually do anything when mixed with others, though. Silver naturally holds oxygen molecules, and silver ions can attach directly to cell membranes, usually bacteria, but I don’t see the benefit of mixing the two together. Especially with the third ingredient, which is human saliva. The only thing I can think of is that someone was trying to make a homemade poison, although with venom this potent they wouldn’t have to mix it with anything. Come to think of it—”

Hanzo holds up a hand. “Enough.” Pieces begin to move together in his head. He straightens, chomping at the bit for a mere prospect that he may be on a lead. “Is there a way to discover whose saliva it is?” 

“We could test it against any of the medical records we currently have access to. Which is just ours, here. Which doesn’t make sense, obviously. The safe and the building have both been locked since before we all arrived. And Mr. Shimada just opened it for the first time the other day. Also—”

“May I?” chimes Anundhatta, offering a sleek hand out toward the test tube. 

“Sure.” She drops the test tube into the omnic’s outstretched hand. She keeps her eyes on Hanzo the entire time. 

Anundhatta rests the tube on his outsretched palm with one hand, he forms a _mudra_ with the other, and soon the familiar, yellowish biotic glow is bouncing from the cleaned glass of the tube and also straight through the compound inside, bits of light flashing momentarily off of the reflective substance. 

“The damn U.N. has everyone else’s records from before, if that’s what yer thinking,” says Torbjörn under an astute raise of the eyebrow. 

“I do not expect Winston has made much progress with them,” muses Hanzo dryly. He turns toward the doors. “I need to think.”

“Ah, no,” Torbjörn corrects. “Ye need t’ tell me what yer planning on doing with my crew tonight.” 

Anundhatta offers the tube back to Shara with a thankful bob of the head. “The poison has a half-life. At this juncture, it may not even be lethal.” 

Hanzo bites his lower lip. “Gérard.” 

“Eh?” Torbjörn says, cupping a hand over his ear. 

“The saliva. I am nearly positive it is Gérard’s.” He is silent for a moment, gathering the obtuse streams of consciousness rapidly gathering in his brain. 

“Back to th’ subject at hand, maybe ye can ask ‘im tonight,” Torbjörn says. 

“Gérard said that Amélie asked him the difference between poisonous and venomous. Something was wrong with her in the videos. They have yet to explain what it was.” Hanzo mutters, half to himself. Something unwinds within him when he begins thinking about the holodiscs. Something slips, deep behind his primal consciousness. The same kind of mechanism he springs when he summons the dragons. It manifests as a crick in his neck, to which he responds by cracking it loudly. “If she had been poisoned, and was in such a state as to forget such a banal piece of trivia…” 

“Hey, Shimada.” Torbjörn snaps his fingers. “Stay with us.” 

It could be that… 

It shifts. The crick moves from side to side, and he follows with his head, cracking his neck loudly each time he moves. The voices of the others in the room grow distant, lost to the pieces forming together in the flurried rush of his thoughts. Conclusions: Gérard was attempting to dilute the poison. He was trying to cure her. She had been poisoned. The video. Their supposed trip to Beijing, after or during which she went missing? No. The holodisc dates prove they were here the entire time. Why cover it up? Why let something slip past their fingers? 

“Mr. Shimada?” Anudhatta asks with a heavy edge of worry somewhere in the distance. 

“This is it,” Hanzo says distantly, attempting to focus in on the other presences in the room. 

“Fer _fuck_ —” Torbjörn begins, and then Hanzo snaps to. 

“This is what turned her into Widowmaker.” 

***

Dry heaves over a toilet. A sickening spiral, a clashing of both the numb and aching sensations both broiling throughout his body. Meager attempts at picking food off a plate. Fruitless endeavors to organize his quarters, the former meticulousness and tidiness of the archer lost in a thick haze of dread and torment. This is what becomes of the rainy day Hanzo had so hoped to spend outside. 

As droplets accumulate against a closed window, showers and lightning spitting off and roaring in the distance, Hanzo sits staring at a blank holoscreen in his quarters, unfolded sheets gathered up around him. Hair untied, beard unkempt, eyes bloodshot. It is nearing that telltale hour where, hopefully, Gérard will reappear for Chelsea. Where, hopefully, more answers will be laid out in front of him. 

Twisting in his gut is a hot knife of anxiety. Medication no longer dulls the ache as his body becomes too tired to process it properly. And, as if compounding happily upon all his other troubles, the only thing Hanzo can think of as a painkiller is Vandergild’s half-consumed bottle of Maker’s Mark. He imagines it sitting on the guard post, slick with rainwater, next to the mountainous man as he surveys the vista for any sign of danger. As he works. As he does everything Hanzo can no longer do. 

He types absently on his phone’s keyboard. 

\---  
TO: CHELSEA 

Is the window open?  
\---

\---  
TO: MURRAY 

Positions.  
\---

And he waits. Blank-faced, letting disease pilfer his bodily agency, washing over him in a sick tide of nauseating twists in his joints. He wallows, just for a moment, in the gradual loss of muscle strength in his shoulders and legs. What used to be tight, smooth, strong is descending into a low sag; still unnoticeable to others, but enough to put Hanzo in just the mood to watch Gérard get shot in the face. 

The phone chimes. 

\---  
FROM: CHELSEA

Every1 is here  
\---

He pockets his phone, gradually moves to a stand. Nighttime prolific and moist at his back, he limps out into the hallway and down into the foyer. As everyone comes into view from under the second floor landing, the knife in his intestines twists once more, sending his body into high alert. Chelsea and Torbjörn stand in the center of the room. The engineer strokes his beard anxiously, obviously dissatisfied with the idea in general. 

“How do we even know he’s gonna show?” he grumbles, locking eyes with the archer as he slowly wins over the last few stairs. 

“We don’t,” says Chelsea. “But we’re going to try until he does.” The shyness from when she first met with Hanzo reappears as an anxious wringing of her hands and fingers. Nevertheless, she looks better. Despite how late it is, the bags under her eyes are more of a wrinkle and less a low-hanging, purple testament to her growing instability. The crazed glint in her eyes has dissolved into a wet tearfulness; just fear, not mania. Maybe it’s the reaffirmation that she’s not alone (Hanzo knows this relief all too well at this point) or maybe she’s just growing stronger from the experience. 

“Turn off the lights,” says Hanzo. 

Murray chimes in breathlessly from the short-wave. “In position.” 

“Now what?” says Torbjörn with a derisive cross of the arms after he flips a breaker on the far wall. He leans up against the tile. 

“We wait,” Hanzo answers, sitting on a nearby bench, hands folded over his cane in front of him. 

Torbjörn stares at it for a second, his singular pupil dodging away when Hanzo makes eye contact. 

“It helps,” offers the archer. 

“Yer welcome,” he mutters. Hanzo swears, just for a second, the engineer blushes. 

Anundhatta arrives shortly afterwards from down the hall, having still taken up office space in one of the empty rooms. They glide smoothly into the room, dented faceplate lit up in an eerie cyan. They don’t say a word, merely taking their place next to Torbjörn. Hanzo cannot read their movements as they settle in, partially due to the darkness, and partially because, Hanzo muses, they are reserved this evening. Wary, vigilant. Somehow Hanzo knows: they’ve seen battle and they know what it’s like to prepare for one. 

The foyer is a wide, circular room. Hospital linoleum on the floors and ugly beige tile on the walls, it’s potentially the most clinical room in the dorms. This is where they came after the initial assault on the Watchpoint, where everything started. Everyone covered in a fine layer of dust from the explosion. Murray, pale and wide-eyed, spattered with blood from her lover’s skull. Hanzo, rattled, alert, but still capable in that moment, having single-handedly driven Widow away at the price of his subordinate’s life. This is where he paused, shaken by his team’s efforts on the cane he now holds in front of him. It’s presumably the first room Jesse entered on the compound, jet-lagged and eager to wrap his arms around Hanzo’s waist. Now, he puts Torbjörn’s subordinate at stake, a wager with what may or may not be the undead visage of the bright and brilliant man on the holodiscs. 

11:10 PM. Twelve minutes. Heart pacing unevenly in his chest, legs idle, Hanzo leans against the bench and stares at the ceiling. Anundhatta meditates cross-legged on the bench across from Hanzo. Thankfully, Torbjörn and Chelsea do not dilute the silence with empty chatter—they, too stare silently through dark space, watching. The linoleum looks wet with the shine of the moon. The smell of water-logged flora and post-rain industrialism sneaks in through the deliberately open window. A chill, beckoning from the desert night down south, crawls in through the window and dances through Chelsea’s hair, dying before it reaches Hanzo in his shadow-saturated corner. 

“Have you ever been in love, Mr. Shimada?” murmurs Chelsea, downtrodden and quiet. Suddenly embodying the timidity from her presentation to Winston about the medbay weeks ago. 

“Kinda question’s that?” Torbjörn huffs. “Ye see him locking arms with th' damn cowboy everywhere they go.” 

“I’m not sure. _Are_ you two in love?” She deadpans now, a little more confident. Something about the way she speaks makes Hanzo think she’s smiling in the darkness. 

“Focus,” the archer responds, attempting to gather his thoughts after the sudden interruption. 

“You can go everywhere with someone and not be in love,” she continues. “You can be really far away with someone and still be in love. You’ve experienced both, haven’t you, Mr. Shimada.” 

“What is this?” says Torbjörn, snorting. 

“I’m really far away from someone I love very much.” She sounds sad now, dropping at the end of her sentence. One can hear a distant sigh. 

“ _Focus_ ,” Hanzo repeats firmly. “It is almost time.” 

“I’d very much like to see her.” Wry. Almost frustrated. 

Torbjörn shuffles in his position. “Her? You’re married to a man.” 

“Oh,” she says as if she’d just been told a pleasant surprise. 

“Something is wrong,” says Anundhatta, emerging from their silence. 

Hanzo snaps up, trying to find Chelsea in the light. “Murray,” he whispers into the short-wave. 

“Are you gonna shoot me?” Chelsea asks. “Right here?” She puts her finger up against her forehead. 

Something rolls in Hanzo’s guts. The knife is gone, replaced by a hollowness. Empty and waiting. His limbs tingle with intensified pain. Untethered by his medication, it sears. He bolts to a stand nevertheless. 

“Is that what she did?” Hanzo asks urgently. “Did she shoot you?” 

“Are you gonna shoot me?” Chelsea repeats, stepping into the shaft of moonlight. It throws light off of her little round spectacles, making her look like some sort of nocturnal forest creature. She sounds raspy, and her mouth has turned into a twisted grin. 

The torment in Hanzo’s bones rears up in three beats of succession. Three times the agony. Then four and five. 

“He’s here,” chokes the archer. 

“Do it.” Chelsea says with finality at the open window. Torbjörn takes a step forward, and then halts. 

The shadows behind the woman have solidified. 

They churn, gyrating with disgusting tremors and cold waves of oppressive despair in a maelstrom. 

“Breaker won’t work,” says Torbjörn in a slightly panicked voice. 

“ _Do_ it,” Chelsea says again, voice growing deep, speaking from the bottom of her throat. She twitches a little in the light. “I deserve it.” 

“Why?” Hanzo asks over the tremors. 

“Shoot me!” she shouts suddenly, rounding on Hanzo. She takes a meager step forward as the shadows coalesce into a bitter imagining of a human body in her shadow. “Shoot me!” 

“Stand _down_ ,” Hanzo hisses into the short-wave, seeing the gilnt of Murray’s rifle from across the courtyard through the open window. 

“Shimada! This wasn’t the plan!” grits Torbjörn, fury edging his voice from the clacks of his teeth. 

“Why?” Hanzo repeats. 

Chelsea starts pulling at her jacket. “Shoot me. Shoot me. Do it. Shoot me, I deserve it!” Increasing mania, increasing frenzy. Cold and distant in her eyes, still throwing light from the moon all over the room. “ _Shoot me shoot me shoot me SHOOT ME_.” 

“ _Why_ ,” Hanzo steps forward in delirium, pain turning him into nothing but instinct. “What did you do? What did you _do_ to her!” He grabs her by the shoulders, and suddenly it all stops. Hanzo can’t tell if its’ really silent or if Gérard has somehow deafened him. But suddenly it’s speaking. Not Chelsea, maybe. Hanzo can’t tell if she’s moving her lips. Maybe it’s the shadow. Maybe it’s the darkness itself. 

Maybe it’s Hanzo. 

“You don’t know love,” it says. Hoarse, sick, _cancerous_. Sandpaper on rough metal. “I’ll tear you apart. I’ll tear you limb from limb. He’ll cry when he sees what I’ve done to you.” 

Something cold presses against Hanzo’s forehead. He sees a metallic hand rest against Chelsea’s, too. Suddenly a warm, golden glow takes his eyesight. He imagines himself falling, though he knows that’s not quite right. The throb of agony has subsided into a mere soreness, but it has not disappeared. Where is he, again? What was he doing? It’s so warm. Like Jesse, but physically medicinal. Not mentally. 

Still, he hears himself say, “Jesse,” in a faint voice before he loses consciousness. 

***

Hanzo knows it is a nightmare, but there is no structure. It’s a blinding cavalcade of violent noises and colors, the muted sounds of people screaming in the distance. Is it his family? Is it Jesse or his team? Is it Overwatch altogether? Do they burn? Is it Genji? Just as soon as it begins, it dissolves into a stream-of-consciouness ranting in his brother’s voice. Hanzo doesn’t understand what it is saying, although it sounds vaguely like Japanese syllables. The confusion emerging from the nonsense seems more terrifying than anything else. Bridging the space between vague shapes and scenes of bright, flashing lights is the sound of Hanzo crying as a child. Why does he remember it so well? 

He comes to with Anundhatta standing over him, hands clasped in their signature, serene watchfulness. Torbjörn and Chelsea are nowhere to be found. He scans behind the omnic briefly, and discovers he’s in his own bed. 

“I carried you here,” Anundhatta says before Hanzo can even form a word in his thoughts. “That was unlike anything I have ever seen.” 

The pain returns ten fold. Not gradually this time, either. It’s one pressure at once, one steamroller of blinding toxicity. In moments it has the archer gasping for breath. 

Anundhatta has just finished lighting incense, and they pause with their hands over Hanzo’s chest, glowing vibrantly. “I have no further conclusions. What we saw last night is certainly not a malevolent spirit. I am not sure it is even organic.” 

“Last… night…” Hanzo repeats inquisitively, trying to force his gasps down into his stomach. 

“Yes, I gave both you and Mrs. Begay a strong anesthetic. You have been asleep for twelve hours.” 

Something sharp jabs Hanzo’s arm for a moment. “A numbing agent. I must tend to Mrs. Begay, whose condition has worsened after your failure to act.” 

“What?” Hanzo says, taken aback. The pain begins to recede like a tide—almost certainly with the promise of return. 

“We had a plan and you did not enact that plan, Mr. Shimada. I expect Torbjörn will want to speak with you.” 

Hanzo stares, blank-faced. He has trouble recollecting the memories. He only sees darkness, and the little, white circles of Chelsea’s glasses in the darkness. 

“I did tell him that the shadow is obviously affecting your behavior as well as hers, given I do not know you to have a tendency to stray from your promises.” 

A rock forms in Hanzo’s throat. It _is_ affecting his behavior. The vulnerability. The crying, the ghastly anxiety. The immovable force of dread that sits heavy like a cinderblock on the back of his neck. The feeling of being waterboarded by his own brain. 

Anundhatta turns away. “Rest some more. I will check back on you tomorrow morning.” The door slides open somewhere far away from Hanzo as the rubberiness returns to his legs. Not too dissimilar from the feeling he woke up with the day before. He contemplates for a moment, staring at the ceiling, trying desperately to recall the events from the night before. Did Murray shoot? Did it do nothing? He remembers one other thing as he passes out once more: the hoarse voice of devilish chagrin saying “you don’t know love.” It repeats in his brain like a metronome, setting the pace for a day full of waking nightmares and feverish sweating into thin sheets. 

Hanzo awakes with finality as the sun sets. Thankfully, it is a papery loss of feeling he awakes to as opposed to searing agony. He pops his pills and brews more tea nonetheless. He eyes the bundle of holodiscs, sighing heavily before staring out the window. It has officially been a week, he thinks miserably. And no sign— 

The alarm sounds. One quick, staccato burst of noise and the electric whirr of turrets locking on a target. The short wave crackles. 

“False alarm, it’s McCree,” comes Flores’ hurried voice from the short-wave. 

Finally, a painless sensation: the blood rushing to Hanzo’s cheeks. The increasing rapidity of his heartbeat. 

“Which gate,” Hanzo practically screeches into the radio. Thankfully no one is around to see him frenzy into the small closet and battle his way into a _gi_ , struggling to get his limbs to cooperate in a flurry of movement and wriggling fabric. 

As Vandergild’s rumbling “supply,” seeps into Hanzo’s ears from the short wave, he is perched over the hard porcelain of the sink, desperately attempting to tame the wet tangle that was once a sleek head of tied-back hair. He fingers, briefly, the bags under his eyes and breathes a cloud of dismay into the atmosphere. 

The archer has never been more thankful for a cane. 

It makes repetitive, yet therapeutic _clacks_ against the roughened concrete walkways of the Watchpoint. One major advantage to this debilitating new affront to his body—while the sun visibly licks everything with tongues of blurry fire, the rays roll off Hanzo’s back, unable to pierce the numbness of his papery skin. 

“Get Christen,” mumbles Vandergild from the short-wave. “He looks a little roughed up.” 

_Clack_. The cane picks up the pace. 

Hanzo hears the supply gate sliding shut with a bobbing, metallic noise as he rounds the mess hall. 

There he is. Just ahead, standing with his weight all on one leg. Big thumbs hooked casually into denim belt-loops, eyeing Hanzo from under the brim of the hat. Shadow half-cast over a dirtied face. Chewing an unlit cigarillo between grinning teeth under parted lips, saluting into the hot wind. 

“Howdy.” Eye contact. A sweeping gaze. Hanzo suddenly feels naked. “Mother of _fuck_ , Hanzo. Didn’t know it was _this_ bad.” 

_Clack_. Rushed, jittered, clumsy steps closer. Hanzo stumbles into Jesse as Christen and Vandergild round the corner. 

“Woah now,” laughs the gunslinger. Rich, stacked up with that godforsaken charm that melts Hanzo in his outstretched arms. “Ya got eyes on ya, honey.” 

“I do not care,” comes the archer’s muffled reply, speaking into the serape. Inhaling, relishing. Taking in all of it: the unbathed smell of sleeping on a musty floor or nothing but dirt for a week. The smell of old bourbon on a bristled neck. The ever-present scent of wrapped, spiced, tobacco and sunbaked leather. Intoxicating. 

And suddenly, the soreness. The ache. It’s begun to well up again in his knees, and the wrist clutching the cane shakes under the sudden weight. 

“Hey now, maybe we oughta—agh!” He drops Hanzo’s bare arm as the archer pinches the scraggly skin of his neck. “’S that for?” 

“‘ _This bad_ ,’ you say. Between Genji and yourself, perhaps I should begin instructing Overwatch on how to properly greet its loved ones.” Said over the tumultuous sensations in his legs, Hanzo delivers the line with a trembling voice, and leans further into Jesse’s grasp. 

“Yer gonna sass me into an early grave, Mr. Shimada,” Jesse mutters into the top of Hanzo’s head. “Been worried about you. I missed you.” 

“Yet,” Hanzo replies shakily, exhaling sharp and sliding out of Jesse’s arms. “The only phone call I received was from a difficult, disdainful old woman.” 

Jesse flushes for a moment, coughing awkwardly into his fist. 

“This is super cute and everything, but shouldn’t I check you over, McCree?” pipes Christen, creeping closer while sporting his favored yellow notebook and a first aid kit. He stands next to a stoic, but visibly uncomfortable Vandergild. “That sounded sarcastic but I actually didn’t want to interrupt.” He clears his throat. “Just saying.” 

Hanzo flusters for a brief moment before a blinding realization strikes him in the back of the head. Here there is space for the usual withdrawn contempt. Here there is room for the standoffish remark, the sarcastic prod. The behavior reserved for those who tread on his privacy. Once more baffled by his own behavior, the archer leans further into the cane. The nonplussed sniper drops his shoulders against the pang of torment inside his body. What is happening to him? 

“Yeah, awright.” The gunslinger looks back at the archer, whose eyes draw down to the ground. The ache has reached a peak, and in observance of the numbness this morning, he didn’t take his medication. The gunslinger is silent for a moment. “Seeya back at the room. Lie down.” Gruff, unsure. 

Hanzo has never been this public about their relationship before. He hides nothing from his subordinates, but he makes a point not to strut it about either. Jesse knows, as always. He lifts a brow in concern before Hanzo makes a hesitant nod, acquiescing before the toxicity. 

“Did you take your meds?” Christen asks. Jesse raises a flat palm to silence him, gives him a dry shake of the head. Hanzo turns away from the scene, hobbling back down toward the dorms with a shallow, frigid lake in his chest and the shadow of doubt perching heavily on the back of his neck. Nevertheless, the cowboy is home, and soon Hanzo can curl up to the warmth of his hulking body. The thought shudders his shoulder blades with jovial anticipation. 

_Clack_.

***

Another holodisc loads across the screen. As the image comes into focus, Hanzo’s heart skips a beat. His legs seize up so rapidly and thoroughly that if he hadn’t already been sitting on his bed, he’d have toppled over. It buzzes back into his body—the numbness swelling and stretching across his extremities like a rubber blanket, squeezing tight and then releasing with a pinprick sensation like static all across his legs. 

Gérard looks absolutely ghastly. His face has sucked in, the flesh puckered and faded where anxiety has seeped in. It looks, distantly, like the late stages of Hanzo’s own condition. He sits slumped against the back of his chair.

Hanzo triple-checks the bundle of discs to make sure he hasn’t skipped any. While the video plays, he folds all of the freshly laundered clothing he’d borrowed from Jesse. 

“I wonder… where all this is headed.” He coughs. “You know, Amélie asked me the difference between ‘poisonous’ and ‘venomous’ today. As if she didn’t know.” A sordid, hesitant laugh. It cracks out of his throat like a whip. Forced. Hysterical, even. Another long, dreadful silence follows it. Gérard once more looks straight into the camera, unblinking. 

Hanzo checks to see if the disc has skipped. It has not. As he sits back down and locks eyes with Gérard over a decade, he sees it again. The mortality. The humanity. Struggling just underneath the surface of Gérard’s bony, pale cheeks. Dark skin lightened by chagrin. Teeth browned by a lack of self-care. Right there, inside his facial muscles. In the blood vessels. It screams. 

“Morrison revealed a secret to me today. And I’m going to say it into this camera. Which means I’ll have to classify these.” He suddenly looks angry. “What a pain in my ass.” Neutral and embattled again. He exhales sharp through his nostrils. “The nano-webbing has a weakness. It cannot be programmed to stop the augmentation and self-repair processes. In short, bonded to a structure that then takes damage, it will never stop repairing said damage. I asked him why this is a weakness. Over the conference call, he got a weird look in his face. You know those really sad blue—ah… _puppy_ eyes he’s got? They were… sharp, yes? It made me uncomfortable. He said he hopes he never finds out. I guess I’d say as his friend I hope so, too. As a scientist I cannot in good conscience reject the idea of knowing. I’ll ask Reyes.” 

Suddenly a loud crashing noise can be heard, accompanied by loud metal grinding together. As Gérard buckles in surprise, knocking his chair back with the force of his sudden stand, shouts gather and become louder. Someone, fraught with panic, yells Gérard’s name in the distance. He takes a solemn look at the camera, reaches over, and the holoscreen goes black. 

Hanzo places the last flannel onto the neatly arranged pile and gathers his cane to rise again. He sets the laundry on top of the plain dresser and scoots himself across the tiled flooring. 

The door slides open as Hanzo fumbles for the next holodisc. Jesse stands in the doorway wearing an unbuttoned shirt without a chestplate. His hat leafs to the floor as he strides across the room, confident, rippling with a massive grin plastered on his scruffy face. Hanzo’s heart rate blisters into what feels like quadruple digits. 

"How was the check-up." 

“Bruised rib. Nothin' serious. C’mere.” He lifts Hanzo’s chin, leans over, locks their lips together. The unabashed _thirst_ that follows is only for Jesse’s eyes. He drinks, grappling the back of Jesse’s neck with one hand and pressing a flat palm into his warm chest with another. 

The cane clatters to the floor as Jesse lifts Hanzo and sets him on the bed, towering over him. He never lets go of his partner’s lips, the longing bridging between them in a shower of invisible sparks. Jesse licks fireworks into Hanzo’s maw; Hanzo spits a winter flurry into his. Finally, they part, Jesse on top of Hanzo on all fours, palms sinking into the mattress. 

“How gentle?” Jesse queries, dragging metallic fingertips down the intricacies of the dragon tattoo. 

Hanzo shudders, tries to regain his thought process. Hesitantly, and accompanied by a hand dropping off the back of Jesse’s neck, he responds, “very.” 

“Thought so. I’m gonna take care o’ you. I’m gonna make you so comfortable you won’t even remember why I’m doin’ it.” Quiet, into Hanzo’s neck. Bare, hair-dusted chest against the palm of Hanzo’s hand. Toasty. 

“I—”

“I’ll listen to you complain the whole time, too. You’ll fight me every step of the way, you stubborn old man. Countin’ on it.” Lips brushing against Hanzo’s unkempt beard. “Every second runnin’ hell’s acres out there felt like a million years.” 

“Did you find anything?” Hanzo says, close to a whisper. 

“This ain’t the time for business, Mr. Shimada. This’s the time for pleasure. I was gonna save this for your birthday, but I got other stuff for that anyway.” He wriggles out of his shirt (with the archer taking full advantage of exposed shoulders) and reaches into his pocket. 

“Someone taught me how to make this durin’ the Blackwatch days. Back in Trinidad y Tobago I got a chance to stop by an almond grove, got some oil and mixed it with a little vanilla… steeped it in dried eucalyptus leaves. You wouldn’t believe the luck I had. I came across all this _in order_. Usually hate the Caribbean, too.” 

“You are drabbling,” Hanzo remarks. “What is it for?” 

“Hey asshole, this shit’s expensive,” says the gunslinger over a laugh. “Turn over.” He rolls from on top of Hanzo and sits up on his knees. 

“Why?” 

“Fuck’s sake, honey. You ever just do as you’re told?” 

“Do not ask questions to which you already know the answer,” Hanzo smirks, mimicking a saying of his father’s. Yet, even as he snips, he heeds, slowly edging over until he’s pillow-to-face. 

Jesse straddles him again. After a few seconds, a deliciously earthy-sweet perfume settles in Hanzo’s nostrils. It instantly calms his roaring heart, pleasant and hazy. Balmy, irresistibly smooth hands touch the ends of Hanzo’s shoulders, gentle at first. Then they press, kneading the taut muscles there with expert precision and care. Even the metal fingers are warm and gentle, coaxing the anxiety out of him by affable force.

“Oh,” gasps Hanzo as Jesse massages the center of his back. 

“Ho-o-oly shit, Hanzo. You _really_ needed one o’ these,” Jesse grunts as his fingertips prod. Hanzo stiffens occasionally when the massage gets too violent, but—as if unlocking a door—suddenly the underlying, pressured soreness vanishes. The abatement of his ache, rapid and unearthly pleasant, surges throughout his body while the distant scent of sweetened wildflowers eases much of the pressure off his mind. Talon vs. Overwatch, Hanzo vs. the Lacroixes. The dichotomies that nearly split Hanzo in two vanish into a curling lisp of odiferous smoke as Jesse pauses to light a candle. 

“I was…working…” he mutters into the pillow. 

“Well, now you ain’t,” Jesse breathes into Hanzo’s ear, lips brushing soft against the lobe. 

The massage continues, eking the pain out of the sniper, the rough hands of an outdoorsman smoothed into polished tools by the oil. Still warm, soothing, and Jesse’s scent still lingers just underneath. The spiciness almost makes the rest of the aromas seem sickly, but instead strikes a perfect balance that soon has Hanzo humming easily into the cheap fabric as the tightness in his body works out slowly, surely, steadily. In time with his heartbeat and the distant blinking of the bedside clock. Soon all that occupies the archer’s mind is an overwhelming wave of affection, gratitude, and relief. 

“Hanzo.” 

“Mm.” 

“I ain’t leavin’ your side again.”

“Hmm.” 

“I mean it,” Jesse whispers, leaning in close. “I’m here. I’d rather cancel my own birth certificate.” 

For some reason, distant from his own mentality, Hanzo struggles to find the reason underneath the sensations spreading up and down his back as Jesse continues the massage. The reason his heart shudders and skips a beat. 

The reason the pillow is suddenly wet underneath his cheeks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 10 is already a quarter finished, expect it pretty soon.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Minor violence, some psychological weirdness, and a big fat chunk of backstory. Beep bop.

Hanzo stirs into mid-morning. Post-massage, his spine feels straighter and the creaking waves of torment that swell throughout his body have dulled. Today, they are not sharp stabs that eke from his spine down to his legs and up through the top of his skull, radiating with diseased torture. Today it is merely a dull throb, and as Hanzo downs the handful of pills and takes a big gulp from the glass of water, he can tell. Today is good. 

Jesse stirs behind him in the bed. Lacking a little spoon, he stretches and growls into the shaft of sunlight that breaks across his face. Slowly, he awakens, and watches Hanzo as he sorts laundry, brews tea, and showers. Propped up on an elbow, he observes his partner’s morning rituals intently, as if he’d never seen them before.

Hanzo pauses as he folds a flannel into a dresser drawer, tea mug to his lips. “What?” 

“Nothin’,” Jesse justifies. “You’re just goddamn beautiful.” Muffled by the slur of a half-awake cowboy. 

“Save it, cowpoke,” Hanzo says after a failed attempt to assuage the flush in his cheeks. “I am a cripple.” 

“You’re the most handsome cripple I ever saw.” A grin, a trickle of twitching fingers across the sheets. “Come over here.” 

“I am busy. I need to watch the rest of these.” He gestures at the holodiscs. 

“I’ll get you some grub,” Jesse says. 

“All the way from the mess hall?” Hanzo protests. “Just be patient. I will go with you.” 

“I got these looong legs,” Jesse says, stretching one hairy appendage in the air, dangling his toes suggestively. “I’ll take me two shakes of a chicken’s neck.” 

"If you insist," murmurs the archer, clipping the next holodisc into the screen. “You have not answered any of my questions, either.” 

“Be _patient_ , darlin’,” Jesse repeats, mimicking. “All in good time.” 

Hanzo rolls his eyes. “Are you playing this game because you are not sure how to relate bad news to me, or are you enacting one of your little trickeries again?” 

“Trickeries,” Jesse says, standing and sluggishly dragging his feet toward the bathroom. He puts a hand to his chest. “Why, Mr. Shimada, I have no idea what you mean.” 

“Yes,” Hanzo scoffs, “you do. I do not understand that mind of yours, Jesse McCree.” 

“Me either,” shrugs the cowboy, “’s probably better that way.” 

“Who taught you?” Hanzo says suddenly. “Massage. Who taught you?” He rolls his shoulders; the pleasantries of the night before, as a godsend, are still there. His skin smells faintly of baked plant matter and vanilla. 

Jesse barks a soft, nostalgic laugh. “Now _that_ I ain’t sure how to tell ya.” He slides the bathroom door shut to punctuate.

Hanzo rolls his eyes after him, and stares through Gérard’s stilled face on the paused holoscreen. Even suspended, his hazel eyes probe Hanzo’s, shining above a tired, drooping mouth and lousy with early liver spots. 

“I know I’m not supposed to talk about personal things on these,” he says after Hanzo presses play. His voice is hoarse, dehydrated. He has not slept or ingested anything in hours. Every video he looks closer to the amalgamation of darkness that stalks the halls of the Watchpoint. Every moment shifts him further along toward the edge.

Hanzo obsessively watches him stalk that line, counting and recording his every move. Analyzing. 

Gérard holds up a small photo of a long-limbed spider resting on a pine branch. Its abdomen is blue-and-red striped, with a nauseatingly familiar shade of yellow in the legs. “This is _indicus latrodectus_ , an exceedingly rare variant of the ‘widow’ family of spiders. It is named for its particularly—erm—harmful poison. The funny thing about this… is funny the word?” He looks toward the ceiling, dreamy. Mouth still sloped downwards almost like a stroke victim. “No, I suppose nothing is funny. The… unique property of this spider is that it is poisonous… it is only soluble through the stomach lining. Not venomous. Spider bites you—” a shrug, “—turns the affected area blue. Makes you dizzy.” He waves his hand dismissively, then settles in for another long stare at Hanzo through the camera. “How Amélie ingested it… I have no idea.” 

He does not break eye contact as he says the last few words. This time especially, Hanzo feels something rotten inside him. Something dubious, a claim against his humanity, or some shadowy arbiter that colonizes his limbs. Either way, the ache spreads again, actively. With intent. 

And Gérard is almost _smiling_. Some sinister curl at the end of his mouth. Maybe Hanzo is seeing things. It’s almost a pixel out of a frown on the holoscreen, and yet the twitching underneath the skin on his face has Hanzo’s heart rate furiously increasing. Hanzo breathes deep, focuses on the sound of Jesse humming distantly in the shower. 

“She will probably die within the next couple of days,” he says over a long exhale, sudden. His gaze and his ambience now feel like two completely different holodiscs. 

Hanzo shudders and pauses the video. Gérard had it wrong, he thinks to himself as he downs the last of his tea. It was the opposite. 

Jesse slides the door open and pads heavily out of the restroom with a towel wrapped around his waist. He whistles as he rummages sloppily for his things.

“I like it when you wear my stuff,” he says absently while poking through plaid that, to Hanzo, looks identical. 

“That is good, because I do not have the energy to wear proper clothing today.” 

Over his shoulder, he shoots a sly grin at Hanzo. “Maybe you should just wear nothin’.” 

“Perhaps a certain pea shooter should report on his mission already,” Hanzo grumbles dismissively, although he smiles. He regards the holoscreen for a moment. He feels the dusk creep in again just looking over Gérard’s half-spoken mouth. 

“I’m waitin’ on Torb and Winston, hold her damn horses. You’re too fussied up with work, honey.” He leans over, kisses the top of Hanzo’s head, and drops the towel. “You need a break.” 

“I need a break in the case,” Hanzo rebukes. “And maybe a drink.” 

“That ain’t that funny,” Jesse says sternly. 

“It was not a joke.” Hanzo levels his stare. Jesse glowers, reaches over Hanzo, and thumbs the off-switch on the remote. 

“We’re gettin’ fresh air. C’mon, put these on.” He tosses a bundle of his clothing into Hanzo’s stubborn glare. 

Although a nameless irritation grits in Hanzo’s teeth, he heeds. Slips into the shirt, the sweats, palms the cane, fights to stand. All the while seething at his lover, who stands at the threshold of their quarters whistling into the empty hallway. 

He follows Jesse to the observation deck, where the gunslinger lights a cigarillo and stares off into the breeze. The rainstorm from the day before has become a sauna of humidity now, and as the heat creeps tirelessly over the horizon, it exacerbates the annoyance prickling in his gut. While the gunslinger yammers on about some banal detail, Hanzo stares over the huddled cluster of buildings, slowly recovering from dilapidation and disuse. The conversation recedes into a soliloquy of Jesse’s platitudes—usually charming, but now it drones behind Hanzo’s distracted ears. 

This is where it happened. Hanzo knows that now. The way the shadows boil here at night, churning with unholy predation. The way the history seeps through the walls and sets off all the alarms in Hanzo’s stomach. The way Gérard solidifies, threatens, and recedes into nothingness. The way Widowmaker’s stinging yellow eyes betray the lies through which she was born. It was here. Not at Talon, not in the middle of some underground bunker in South America or Canada. Here, in Overwatch’s backyard. The only thing missing is how she survived. Her transition. The disgusting ‘T’ scrawled on the wall in the medbay burns into Hanzo’s mind like an old-time photograph. Plastered there, amongst all the confusion. The missing piece, one among many: why did she murder Gérard? 

“Hanzo, you hearin’ me?” comes the tether to the real world. That rough-and-tumble voice so saturated with affection. Why does Hanzo cringe inwardly when he hears it now? 

“What.” 

“Look.” He points downward, to the alley between the medbay and the robotics lab. Hanzo follows his finger to find the high-energy figures of Gilbert and Murray, who seem to be arguing. 

Hanzo tilts his head at Jesse. “It has nothing to do with us.” 

The gunslinger shrugs, exhaling a puff of smoke. “I’m nosy.” 

Hanzo scoffs. “I noticed.” 

“I don’t have to give ANYONE a chance,” shouts Gilbert suddenly from below. “Mind your own business!” 

“What if you get hurt, Andrew?” Murray has turned to a high shriek. “What are you gonna do?” 

“I would rather _die_ than go anywhere near that thing.” Gilbert casts a fist horizontally through the air in agitation. 

“Well that’s dramatic,” says Jesse. “He talkin’ about Anundhatta?” 

“Yes. Torbjörn insists I need to speak with him about it,” explains Hanzo. 

“And?” Jesse prods. 

“And I do not care to meddle. It is his life.” Hanzo waves the situation off and starts toward the ladder, then stops. “You go first.” 

“I ain’t done up here.” 

“Then do not look.” Hanzo eyes the cane leaning against the bottom of the tower. He slowly drags himself to a crouch, inwardly cursing Jesse for making him come all the way up here. He eases his way down the ladder, each movement a trial. It’s either a shooting pain as he moves a limb too far in an unfavorable direction, or the tight grip of panic as a rubbery foot slips off a ladder rung. 

He hears Jesse mutter irritably to himself above, and despite the flood of second thoughts, the archer hastily dismisses him. 

***

Winston solidifies on the large holoscreen in the robotics lab. Torbjörn is absent, undoubtedly still fuming at Hanzo for what happened two nights before (Hanzo still cannot recall everything that occurred, which sits in the back of his mind like the nagging call of a cicada). The strike commander still takes a piqued look around from his side of the camera as if he has peripheral vision, scanning for the portly engineer. Jesse stands next to Hanzo, who has taken a seat on top of a desk. Fatigue has settled into the sniper’s stomach, and despite Jesse’s stubborn attempts to manipulate him into eating, no energy was gained from the meager morsels at which he was able to pick. 

“Listen,” grumbles the ape. “Before I have McCree report, I should probably give you guys an update on my end. Overwatch has begun renovations in Beijing and Antarctica. We have Mei-Ling and a new RDF liaison named Zaryanova leading the recovery force in Antarctica. Naturally, we ran into Vishkar, but nothing crazy. We finally have the staff for this.” He reads the look on Hanzo’s face and flusters for a second. “I’ve also appointed Lúcio as my Second. And uh,” the gorilla, with his trademark awkward shuffle, scratches the back of his furry neck and licks his lips. “I gave him kind of a special mission.” 

“Hoo-wee, Beijing back up and runnin’? That’s some serious chowder, big guy. How’s the grand ol’ United Nations?” asks the gunslinger rwith the roll of the eyes. 

“That’s actually the context of Lúcio’s mission. He’s gonna, by proxy of a few people he knows in South America, hack into the UN and take the Grand Mesa files from them.” 

Hanzo straightens. “That is incredibly dangerous.” 

Winston sighs. “I don’t like it either. But we don’t have a choice. They’re acting shadier than usual, and even after I cited parts of the original Overwatch agreement that we be allowed access to our own files, they wouldn’t budge. At this point, with Hanzo the way he is, and with Talon reacting the way they are, this could be huge.” 

“It is ‘huge’,” Hanzo says with an air of toxicity. “We have reason to believe the accident that created Widowmaker took place here. Not at Beijing.” 

Winston’s eyes bulge. He is silent for a moment, and his pupils frantically search his office for his huge water mug. “What makes you say that.” 

“We accessed Gérard Lacroix’s safe here—yes, he operated here. I have holodisc footage to prove it—and it contained a sample of venom. The holodisc footage indicates Amélie somehow ingested spider venom either while she was here or while she was in Beijing. In attention to how much of the footage I have watched, Gérard was under the impression she would die here.” 

As Hanzo speaks of the holodiscs, he feels Jesse’s silent eye on him. The one that reads things. The one that knows. 

“That’s… a lot.” Winston leans back. “Why would Jack and Gabe cover that up?” 

“I suspect, given the evidence, that Talon poisoned her as part of a bigger plan. Morrison let it happen on his watch, just after his confident move of establishing a task force against them. Talon had motive and resources to go after Gérard and those close to him directly.” Hanzo rasps into the holoscreen, feeling faint. 

“The way he’s actin’ now, all hush-up and vigilante—not unlike yours truly, the hypocrite—I’m guessin’ it ain’t unrealistic he didn’t wanna face his fuck-up.” Jesse tilts his hat into the afternoon sun. “At that time, Gabe had his hands full with Blackwatch. We were in Johannesburg, remember? He probably never found out.” 

Winston shakes his head, eyes drawn downwards. Slopes at the edges of his mouth. 

“You do not want to believe it,” Hanzo observes. 

“No, I don’t. But it adds up,” Winston sighs. “I need copies of those holodiscs.”

“Understood.” 

The gorilla leans back in his chair, furry belly protruding into the air. He takes a swig of water, checks his phone, and types on it absently. Without looking at the camera, he complacently yawns, “McCree.” 

“Yep.” The gunslinger leans forward, placing both of his hands flat on the desk on which Hanzo sits. “I tailed Reaper right onto the I-70 hyperlane. He had some sweet ride, and all I could do was try to keep up ah,” he coughs, “in my own way.” 

“You stole a car,” Hanzo remarks. 

“I _borrowed_ a bike from a Deadlock outlet. Anyway, I lost ‘im somewhere around the Utah border, probably somewhere near Cisco. But I know Gabe, and I know Jack. Nothin’ they’re after is in Utah. So I headed south right away, picked up a trail in Red Mesa—that’s when I reported in and found out what happened to Hanzo.” He shoots a sidelong glance at his partner, woeful and guilty, but resumes his story. “Long, borin’ story short, I never found ‘em. But…” he exhales sharp, through his nostrils, and twirls a cigarillo in his full lips. “I found Ana fuckin’ Amari.” 

Winston sucks in a sharp breath. “Really?” 

“Well, _she_ found _me_.” He laughs, soft and a little shameful. “Didn’t remember fallin’ asleep. Woke up with a full canteen, a needle in my neck, and my phone outta my pocket.” 

“Where was this?” the gorilla leans forward now, tapping surprisingly rapidly with clumsy fingers. 

“Gallup. I reckon they took off on I-40 Eastbound.”

“What makes you say this?” Hanzo asks, raising an eyebrow. 

“I saw Talon mobilizin’ in Chambers, headin’ East. I’d bet a whole horse Jack had caught up to Gabe. Made a pit stop in Albuquerque, got a tail and fought ‘em off in Alamosa. Then, time was up. I headed back.” 

“So you have nothing.” Hanzo sours. 

“I didn’t say that,” counters Jesse, scowling at Hanzo. “Keep your sass under wraps for a few seconds, will ya?” 

“Boys,” growls Winston. “What have you got?” 

“Well, three things stuck out to me. One: Ana hung back. She knew I was tailin’ ‘em, and she left Hanzo a little message, which I wanna hear in a sec,” he playfully shoulders the archer, who remains stoic and withdrawn. “Two: Gabe coulda gone straight South if he was headin’ to New Mexico. Why would an agent slicker ‘n cow shit take a cracked-up route? They’re lookin’ for somethin’, and they don’t know where it is. Three.” He counts off his fingers, the determination bracing in his eyes. 

Hanzo’s stomach rolls through the chagrin. Somewhere, the warmth is still active. 

“The Talon force in Chambers was big time numbers. About twenty people. Whatever they’re lookin’ for, it’s big.” 

Winston, who has had his eyes locked on his own computer terminal while Jesse spoke, finally draws his eyes back into the camera, yellow and newly alert. “I see.” 

“And they been lookin’ for it for a while. Remember my little train raid?” Jesse begins pacing back and forth, didactic, confident. 

“Yeah.” Winston smirks. “You said you were after justice, but you were just trying to get our attention.” 

“I’m not sure I’m like to with all this ‘everyone sees through McCree’ story we got goin’ on here,” Jesse laughs. “But that’s not why I brought it up.” He folds his hands behind his back and continues pacing. “The Talon agents on the train were after a little box of this glowin’ stuff. Pink cube.” 

“Nano-webbing, maybe,” Hanzo says. “The filaments in the footage were blue, but it seems to operate on principles beyond our understanding.” 

“To this day I resent you for throwing it overboard,” mutters Winston. 

“That’s just it,” says McCree, twirling the cigarillo around with metal fingers. “If Gabe’s on it, he would’ve found it a long time ago. He’d have scoured the area until he found it. Thing was glowin’, at night—you could prob’ly see it from a chopper. They’re still lookin’, which means that pink box ain’t what they thought it was. Maybe a red herrin’.” 

“That supply company was owned by Helix Security,” says Winston. “They surrendered its assets after the investigation, I’m sure to avoid implication and whatnot.” 

“Helix at Trinity,” says Hanzo under his breath. 

Jesse turns on his heel, leans forward. “What’d you just say?” 

“The message,” answers Hanzo. “Amari said to me, ‘Helix at Trinity.’” 

“Son of a bitch.” Off goes the hat, steady against McCree’s chest, the sobriety kicking in. 

“Huh?” is all a muted Winston says over the holoscreen speakers. 

“Ana god-damn, mother-fuckin’ Amari and Jack shit-kickin’ Morrison. We’re probably late.” 

“Are you going to explain, or are you just going to curse under your breath and name people?” Hanzo asks impatiently. 

“Talon was close. They’ll probably find what they’re lookin’ for soon. There’s a defunct Helix site at Bandelier where the ol’ nuclear labs were back before the Crisis. Trinity.” 

“Helix was also here,” says Hanzo. He looks pointedly at Winston. “You said they reneged on their buyout of the property.” 

“Yeah,” said Winston. “And given Torbjörn’s reports, they probably cleaned this place of whatever resources it had left.” 

Hanzo folds his hands in his lap. Gérard, the nano-webbing, and Amélie were all here. Depending on what happened in the videos, where would the nano-webbing have gone? He bites his lower lip, shutting his eyes. Did they use all of it? Did they use some of it? After Amélie turned into Widowmaker, what would’ve happened? The entire place was left in a hurry both times; the evidence is everywhere. The nano-webbing wasn’t in the safe. And, finally, his thoughts reach an apex. A pinnacle in a sea of violent currents, disorganized thoughts, anachronistic changes in logic. The ultimate question Hanzo has posed since Widowmaker attacked the first time. 

Why? _Why_

“Hanzo?” Jesse says, leaning in close. He settles a wide hand on the top of the archer’s head. 

“Helix moved the nano-webbing to the site from the message. That has to be what this is about. That has to be why Widowmaker came here. They’re looking for it. And only Helix knows what happened to it.” 

Winston leans back again, studious. He eyes the ceiling, chews on nothing. The silence, usually a pittance for Hanzo, usually a blessing, now churns in his skull like a parasite. Chewing. 

“Doesn’t explain why Jack thinks Widow went AWOL, but, nevertheless.” 

“Nevertheless what?” repeats Jesse. 

Winston puts on the face of the strike commander. Again, Hanzo notices, in the short time since the last briefing, he wears it with even more confidence. 

“Looks like you two are going to Los Alamos.” 

***

Hanzo shies away from Jesse following the briefing. He brews tea in solitude in the room while Jesse communes in the medbay with his team, merrymaking, bonding. Potentially manipulating his way into Gilbert’s head, since his incessantly busy hands can’t keep themselves out of anything. Hanzo wonders too, at the turn of these thoughts and as the day progresses into evening and night, why he feels so drawn away from the gunslinger today. Why every one of his actions spikes a wary adrenaline. Not the kind that instigates the survival instinct, the one Hanzo has always had trouble quelling. Anger. Irritation. The prickling sensations earned as Hanzo eyes his lover’s actions with nothing but a tableau of annoyance. In the end he chooses to blame the ache, the consistent pain and rubberiness that, instead of interchanging in waves, has come to churn through him in swaths. 

He watches the sunset. The pain is obstreperous, loud in his ears and vibrating in his legs. The pain medication helps less and less each day, and the thoughts of the whisky by Vandergild’s side increases by the hour. He reflects, or tries to, on previous events. Once more tracing the narrative from beginning to present in futile attempts to organize his thoughts. 

Gérard. Did he take Hanzo now, too? What other things might the archer have done that he doesn’t remember? By Torbjörn’s account, he took Chelsea by the shoulders and shook her violently, hissing the same question into her face. So unlike him to explode in such a manner, and even more evidenced by the amnesia. Anundhatta was wrong. His dragons couldn’t save him. 

Maybe nobody could. 

He exhales sharp through his nose as the sun wells deep below the horizon. The Watchpoint is cast into darkness suddenly tonight. The moon is eager to take the place of that distant, fiery orb, smiling down on Hanzo with the promise of the haunting. 

He gathers himself, redresses, picks at a nutrition bar. Finally, he hobbles down the steps to the dorm courtyard and crosses over into the medbay.

The rhythmic beep of the hospital machine, coupled with the mechanical clicks of Torbjörn’s rotating claw. The stuttered, heavy breathing of the soft-skinned woman with her big round eyes and wash of pitch-black hair. Her eyes, an opalescent brownish, that look up at Hanzo with calm passivity. A current of dust from the open window, the pale night as the only shaft of light in the room other than the beeping holoscreens displaying vital signs. Any other day, these would simply be observations. Today, as the shadow settles on Hanzo’s neck, Gérard perverting his thoughts and the upcoming leave knotting in his chest, they are sensory overload. 

Chelsea, with a patient simper, says, “It’s not your fault.” 

“Yeh, it is,” counters the engineer, squat in a low wooden chair in the corner. 

“I do sincerely apologize; I do not remember. I am apt to side with Torbjörn’s account. It seems likely.” Hanzo cracks his neck. 

“You know what it is then, Mr. Shimada,” says Chelsea, low and easy. “You know how it feels. How I felt.” 

“Yeh thought ye were above it, didn’t ye?” asks Torbjörn. “Ye thought cuz of yer little blue gobs, ye underestimated the situation. Again.” 

“Yes,” Hanzo strains. At this point the guilt is a constant companion; what’s another to add to the list of mistakes? Atonement is the only path, and yet the more he attempts to walk it, the more things to atone for stacks up. 

“Guilting him won’t help, Mr. Lindholm. Guilt is what got us here in the first place.” 

“How do you mean?” asks Hanzo. 

Chelsea tilts her head, a knowing smile crossing her face like a salmon upstream. “You didn’t feel it?” 

Torbjörn scoffs, puffs heavily into the air. 

“Gérard,” her smile fades, becoming a taut line of full lips. Rounded cheeks sunk low with forced somberness. “You felt it, I know you did. You know it very well, don’t you, Mr. Shimada?” 

Hanzo resists the urge to recoil. The nausea pits below his belly. But she’s right; it’s there. Initially all he saw in Gérard’s face was death. Malady. Perhaps even malicious rage, a desire to cause chaos and to torture those in the light while he writhed in the darkness. But that wasn’t quite right. That wasn’t why he unsettled Hanzo so. From the first night he appeared, from the solidification to human form under the buzzing light outside the medlab, before he even knew who he was, Hanzo felt what he felt. He knew; that face wasn’t malicious. It was suffering, internal and inwardly ballistic. The self-hatred. The guilt, seething out of his eye sockets as black, wispy tears. 

“Yes,” he rasps again. 

Chelsea turns her head toward the small glimpse of the world outside the window. “I was raised on the Navajo rez outside Farmington. You know where that is?” 

“No,” answers Hanzo. 

“I met my husband there. He was dying when we met. I used to practice medicine. He got better and he said he loved me for my quietude. What he really meant was he liked shy women.” 

Hanzo remains silent, as does Torbjörn. They don’t exactly struggle for words, but the discomfort is palpable. 

“I’m not shy anymore,” she says. “If anything has come from this, it’s that. I’ve changed. So have you.” She looks Hanzo up and down. “Not just physically.” 

“Pah,” says Torbjörn. “He’s the same donkey what showed up at Gibraltar asking after Genji like had any right.” 

“No,” says Chelsea. 

The eye contact nearly breaks Hanzo’s withheld focus. The sting forms a lump in his throat.

“You’ve grown soft. You’re nothing but frustration right now.” She turns away again. “His name is Cheyne, and when I come back thinner and louder, he won’t love me anymore.” 

“You do not know this,” offers Hanzo weakly. 

“No, I do. And I’m not that upset, is the thing. I love him, but he’s my first love. Your first love’s never your last. But be careful, Mr. Shimada.” 

“Hm?” 

“Be careful you don’t end up like me. Don’t surrender. Don’t turn away from McCree.” 

“You speak as if—“ 

A startled shout comes from the courtyard outside the defensive array. From Chelsea’s window, Hanzo witnesses a quick flash of light; like a flashbang. 

As fast as the cane will carry him, resounding _clacks_ bouncing off the thin halls of the medbay, Hanzo rushes outside with Torbjörn in tow. The turrets do not chime their targeting systems. It remains silent outside. He wheels around the corner, stares down the alleyway to the small pass between the defensive array and the mess hall. 

Gilbert stands briefly statue-still, as if petrified. Moonlight off his dark skin rolling off in shining patches as he begins to tremble in place. 

“What in the hell?” starts Torbjörn before Hanzo comes out into the pass to see Jesse standing just behind his subordinate. 

“What-the-hell-did… you…” Gilbert grits through force-clenched teeth. 

“I told ya not to squeeze too hard, partner,” mocks Jesse with a relaxed tone. 

“What are you doing!” Hanzo fumes. A saying of Jesse’s sparks in the back of his mind: the straw that broke the camel’s back. 

“We were just messin’ around, and then this joker had to go and clench one of my flashbangs so hard it went off in his face,” Jesse says around a noncommittal shrug. The shroud of cigarillo smoke clouding around his face is enough to ring blizzard-frosted alarm bells in Hanzo’s cranium. 

“Gah…” Gilbert staggers forward, and so does Hanzo. 

“Foolish and absurd, both of you,” hisses the archer, doing his best to support Gilbert’s musculature on his shoulder. 

“Let’s get ‘im to Christen I suppose,” grunts Torbjörn. 

“Nah,” says Jesse, hooking his thumbs into his belt straps. “Christen’s off-duty. Anundhatta’s the only one.” 

Hanzo stops, halts, freezes. Ice collecting behind his teeth. “You.” 

“Talk about it later, honey. Let’s get him to a bed.”

Hanzo seethes, rages even, but follows suit as Jesse strides confidently back toward the medbay. Shoving aside the double doors, Hanzo and mostly Jesse support Gilbert’s trembling, silent frame as they enter. 

“N-no….” Heaves from Gilbert’s throat. 

They approach Anundhatta, meditating on top of the front desk, the ever-serene. Their ocular scanners do not blink with the familiar pulsing blue light. 

“Bed?” says Hanzo under the strain of the heavier man. 

“Down the hall to the left,” comes the light pluck of their steely, omnic voice. “What is wrong?” 

“Squeezed a flashbang too hard. I was tryin’ to teach him how to throw,” grunts Jesse. 

“I imagine that is not a complete story,” says Hanzo, thick with contempt. 

“G-get…” murmurs Gilbert, under his breath. 

“Quickly, now,” Jesse says playfully as Anundhatta guides them down the hallway, gently pressing the door open. 

Inside is a standard check-up room, complete with a bed covered with a sterilized sheet and the calm scent of sterility. 

“Set him down,” says the medic, sterilizing their hands under a clinical red light in from a panel in the corner of the room. 

Gilbert’s mouth trembles, trying to formulate words of chagrin and resistance, but Hanzo ignores him. His eyes sweep with rage over the ensemble standing above him. His fingers twitch, ever so slightly, however Hanzo is not really looking at them. He stands, bracing the cane, back against the wall, glowering at Jesse. Waiting for his next move in this, the most ill-timed of his games Hanzo has ever experienced. 

“So,” Jesse says presently, shoving open the window and lighting another cigarillo. He knows he’s in trouble. “How’d you get that scar, Anundhatta?” 

“Really, cowboy?” growls Torbjörn.

“It is quite alright,” says Anundhatta, swirling their glowing _mudra_ in the air over the wide-eyed, heavy-breathing Gilbert. “It is a matter of formality for me to tell this story amongst new coworkers.” Anundhatta continues their exhibition, but stops speaking. As if 

“There is an omnium in the outskirts of Nashik, very close to what in those days was called Mumbai. That is where I was born. Pre-crisis I was a medicine bot still, and was preprogrammed with the tools of my trade. Nevertheless, I can’t say I don’t truly love them. To no little shame of my own, I fled when the Crisis broke out. In the mountains of Telangana, I hid for many years, presumably during the exploits of what became Overwatch. In that time I learned many things about myself, humanity our creators, and my place in this world.” 

Gilbert jerks suddenly, shoulder lifting up into the air. “The shock to his nervous system is abating. Mr. McCree, would you be so kind as to put that out?” 

“Sure thing,” says the cowboy, flicking the butt of the cigarillo out the door. 

“He asked how ye get the scar, bot, not yer whole life story,” shoots the engineer, twirling his mustache and spinning his claw idly. Irritation visible on his face, thick whitened lips in a deep frown. 

“Ah, but without context, it is merely a tall tale. I shall, for the benefit of the company and potentially my own safety,” they eye Gilbert’s legs as his boots scrape against the end of the table, “I shall skip ahead.

“Emerging from the Telangana post-Crisis, I found that my omnium had been shut down, defunct and left to rot in the outskirts of a ruined city. I initially planned to return to the mountains, stopping in Hyderabad on the way. The poverty was so immense, and the humans there were so full of sickness because of the fighting and the pollutive nature of my people’s weapons, I paused there and attempted to help. This is when I discovered the Shambali movement in all its original glory, which gave my life even more purpose. What I’d learned as a reserved monk in the mountains was applied even further. But, that was not without obstacle. 

“Understandably, people hated us. As we passed on the street, people threw bottles… excrement… whatever they could find. The hatred drove people insane. No amount of contact with my hands would appease that. I remember a little girl… she eyed us with no malice, but her parents threw themselves at our feet with threats. She calmly came up, shifted her father’s robe, and whispered in his ear. Something about ‘chaos’ in Hyderabadi. Khōs. They got up and left. A bit of mercy that I shall never forget. 

“One day we were passing through the slums with offers of food and medicine, and the little girl’s father cornered me in a shanty. He kicked me through the walls, and I landed… I landed in the swamp below the slum. It was less of a swamp and more of a sewer. I am grateful I was created without a sense of smell. Nevertheless, it was obviously humiliating. We were monks, the Shambali, but we were not without our impulse. To speak highly of myself, I never acted on it. But I must admit I felt it. The anger, the embarrassment.

“One of my compatriots, Vawandhatta if I recall, threw themself at the man. He was malnourished, and weak, and easily overpowered. He succumbed, dying of a torn neck.” 

Hanzo turns his head from the omnic to Jesse. He looks on with a somber face, thankfully able to recognize through his machinations the tenor of the room. Torbjörn, too, has quieted. 

Anundhatta pauses, pinching three of their fingers over one another into Gilbert’s eyes. He jerks against the bed, almost able to raise a hand. 

“The villagers rallied against us. I took all of the blame, most of the beatings. I lost an arm in the conflict. Maybe you’ve heard of it. The Hyderabad Disaster. One of the many post-Crisis conflicts that broke out along the most ravaged parts of the world. I never saw their little girl again, nor the mother. It was the most violence I have ever seen up close. Even after running away, shunning my people and yours in the desolation of the mountains, I was fated to see it. The Shambali did not fight back, for the most part. Vawandhatta was extradited from the order… the villagers tore him to pieces with their hands. They bloodied themselves prying out his circuits and his wires and…” 

“Enough!” Hanzo exclaims. 

“No, Mr. Shimada. For at this point I still had not earned my scar,” says Anundhatta. 

They had been serene, steady-voiced the entire time. To Hanzo it sounded dismissive, not contemplative. Myopic, even when ruminating on their past.

“Even Vawandhatta’s death was not enough. They were bloodthirsty. To this day I have not seen anything like it. It had transcended the initial anger at us. They were angry at omnics. All of them. Our faces made their blood boil. And so that was why, as I was fleeing the city alone to the mountains, I was confronted by a lynching party. They chided me so, for travelling alone with only the one arm. 

“I’ll spare you the details. They violated me in many ways. There is scarring in other places.” 

“Why not replace the faceplate?” asks McCree, leaning into the night air. 

“As a reminder. I vowed, that same day, never to perpetuate the hatred. I understood them. I felt it, too. But I also saw the cycle. Even in my isolation, I understood.” 

“I applaud you for your… stoicism,” says Hanzo, at a loss for anything else. 

“Stoicism, hardly. Call it cowardice or naïveté. I have spent the remainder of my years to this point atoning for those days. Doing what I can, though my soul, like the rest of us in this room, will never be unstained.” 

“Thank you kindly for the exposition, my friend,” says a sober McCree, tipping his hat and heading for the door. “You need to rest,” he says low in Hanzo’s ear. 

“Do not dare to command me now,” hisses Hanzo, jerking his head away from Jesse’s lips. Jesse frowns, shrugs, and steps outside. Hanzo snarls silently after him, eyeing Gilbert on the bed. 

“I have finished.” Anundhatta relinquishes the golden biotic light and steps backward for Gilbert to swing his legs around and move to a stand. 

He looks at Hanzo, brow furrowed, eyes still wide. Breathing heavy. Livid. He stares Torbjörn down as well, and then without taking a look at Anundhatta, stomps out of the room. 

“I apologize for the gunslinger’s manipulations. All of this was a ruse, you see,” he says, leveling with Anundhatta. 

“I had the suspicion. I doubt it will foster any amity between us.” 

Hanzo snorts. “Despite how infuriating they are, despite how sneaky he can be, he always wins. You shall see. It is potentially the worst part.” 

“No,” says Anundhatta. “You love him deeply for it.” 

Hanzo twists out of the room, clacking vigorously down the hall. 

***

They prepare for their trip over the next few days, the tension none too eager to dissipate from between them. When Jesse enters the room, Hanzo becomes still and silent, even moreso than usual. He brew his tea with a grimace, swallows his medication with ire. They do not shower together. Hanzo wakes up earlier than the gunslinger, and takes advantage of it. He has already performed his rituals and eaten when Jesse awakes. They plan their mission docket, re-brief with Winston, commune with Torbjörn and the others. 

Jesse gives him space. He knows of the maladies, of the aches and pains, shooting down his body. And Hanzo knows, too, that if it weren’t for the toxicity perforating his skin and soul, he might be gentler with his lover. He might even have shunned any negative feelings from the encounter with Gilbert. But now, with nothing but anger to soothe his pain, and nothing but thoughts of the drink to mark his thoughts with the passage of time, he drowns once again. 

Hanzo creates a mission docket and packs clothing for the both of them while Jesse maps out their route. He purchases hypertrain tickets online while Jesse makes calls to old connections, seeing if there are any advantages to be taken. He attempts to communicate with Ana to no avail. They pursue completely opposite facets of the same mission in order to avoid direct communication. He sees the dissatisfaction in Jesse’s face as he heeds Hanzo’s obvious wishes. At night, Hanzo falls asleep opposite Jesse, not touching. When he wakes, to his chagrin, he finds himself wrapped around the gunslinger once again. 

Genji’s voice: _You are still a child_.

The holodiscs have remained untouched by the holoscreen. Some gnawing assurance in Hanzo’s mind tells him he can’t watch them with Jesse around. So finally, when he feels ready, and he knows Jesse is out on a patrol, he clips on the next one. His room is dark, the window curtained. The shadows stretch along the wall, flittering in response to the light of the screen. Of Gérard’s face. 

Something shocks in Hanzo’s sternum, rearing him back on the bed. A force, either from within his body or external, it doesn’t matter. It keeps him pinned there while Gérard exhibits another one of his unbearably long silences. A flash of malice touches his eyes as he stares into the camera, and there it is. 

The thing underneath him. If you pierced his skin, Hanzo thinks, it would bleed nothing but black shadow that screams with the face of death. With the pen on the table next to him, or one of the tools behind him, or the chair—

It sits behind him, callous and shining unnaturally against the light in the room. The chair from the Talon room in the medbay, and the figure on it. 

Someone is in the chair. Skeletal in a hospital gown, face obscured by a lengthy black shadow. 

Gérard is sunken. He looks blankly at the camera, face drawn. His skin looks an ashy chocolate against the pale, surgical light in the room. The malice hasn’t left his eyes. He tilts his head, staring into Hanzo’s face. He licks his lips. 

Hanzo recoils against the wall, the ache pitting a spike of ice in his chest, unable to breathe. 

The figure on the chair stirs. 

Amélie.

“An old compatriot of mine said that Amélie was curable. That if we did it this way, it would be fine. That she would be fine. She’ll be fine,” Gérard says, ghosts on his tongue, whispers behind his throat. “If we do it this way.” 

Amélie coughs in the background, tinged with a note of her singsong voice, and Hanzo feels the air forcibly taken out of him as she sits up. 

“Please, Gérard, this is ghastly. The stuff has changed you. You aren’t thinking straight.” She looks dead. Her skin is bleach white and her eyes have a bright red ring around them. The skin around her throat has turned a sickly blue. She looks as if she weighs no more than ninety pounds. Her collarbone sinks and rears with her trembling voice. 

“Ghastly?” 

“Gérard, Harris lied to you. This won’t work. They’re using you, Gérard. Please. Listen to Jack.” She croaks, loses her voice, and slumps back into the chair, groaning in agony as her back hits the spikes. 

“Ghastly?” Gérard repeats, turning from the camera. “No, Amélie. Not ghastly.” He gets up.

Hanzo cries out, his throat seizing the way Amélie’s did. The room spins, enough to nauseate him, but yet he makes out every painstaking detail on the screen: the razors, the spines in the chair, the surgical light, Gérard’s hunched form shuffling up to her, carrying…. 

Hanzo retches into the sheets. Thankfully nothing comes up, but the dry heaves constrict his airway and bulge his eyes. It’s not long before there are tears. 

“Not ghastly.” What is he carrying? The only detail out of focus, maybe a cube? Maybe a cylinder? 

It’s the cylinder. The nano-webbing. 

“The opposite, in fact.” He hooks the cylinder, containing one thin strand of the nano-webbing, a blue swath of nothinginess in Hanzo’s vision, to the chair.

“This is _love_.” 

“Hanzo.” 

Something grabs his wrists. He strains to see the screen as Amélie convulses on the chair. 

“Hanzo.” 

Where are his hands and his legs? He’s submerged in water. No, it’s just cold. Is it cold? 

“ _Hanzo!_ ”

The screen vanishes. The room vanishes. Suddenly he’s swept away by a current of gripping hands, convulsing faces, all Gérard’s, all Amélie’s. Something cold touches his throat. 

“HANZO, NO!” His wrist jerks backward, and everything comes back into view like a car smashing through a glass window. Everything fades so instantly, Hanzo loses his balance. He leans into the sink. 

The sink? A mirror? 

“Hanzo, Jesus _fuck_.” Jesse stands next to him, in a pallid, dimly lit room. Something is scrawled on the wall behind Jesse.

They’re in the medbay. In the room with the chair. 

Jesse holds a scalpel, tinged with a spot of blood. Hanzo, plastered with sweat, cold and clammy and barely dressed, looks around the room with widened eyes. There is nothing but disorientation here. Nausea. 

“What…” he looks at his face in the mirror, drawn and moist and unbelievably pale. Circles on his eyes similar to Amélie’s. The memories rush back. 

“I came into the room and you walked right past me to here.” Jesse spits. His eyes level with Hanzo’s absolute fury behind them. A fire, burning in the desert like hot coals. “I found you with this against your neck.” He brandishes the scalpel and throws it across the room. 

“What…” he queries again, slapping a cold hand to his neck. Indeed, there is the slight mark of a razorblade. It stings to the touch, and Hanzo’s palm comes back stained with crimson. 

“That’s it.” Jesse stomps past him. “Stay the fuck here.” 

Hanzo starts after him, realizes he doesn’t have his cane. Did he walk all the way here that quickly, unsupported? He uses the wall for support, each step a lunge, to creep after Jesse’s angry stomps. 

Outside, in the courtyard, the moon is bright and taunting, hanging pearly in the sky with a menacing grin. The air is cold and dead, silent. It brushes against Hanzo’s ears. Light balances off the windows, eerie and complacent to the growing shadows wretching across the ground. Hanzo tries to fight off the lightheadedness, the pain in his neck. He braces against the wall of the medbay as the dorm doors burst open, Jesse striding urgently out into the courtyard. 

“What are you doing?” 

“You think I ain’t noticed what these things have been doin’ to you?” he shakes a fist full of something dark. Hanzo, eyes adjusting to the murmuring blackness around him, recognizes the bundle of holodiscs. 

“No job is worth this, Hanzo. Not to me.” 

“Jesse.” 

He tosses the holodiscs into the air. 

“Jesse! No!” He rasps futile into the night as Jesse draws Peacekeeper and fires in one subtle movement, shattering the discs, and the end of the mystery, in the air. 

Hanzo’s knees sink to the ground as the two are showered with tiny, reflective shards.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, this semester has been a doozy. Sexual content, top!Hanzo.

In the yawn of the early morning, the hypertrain station is unsurprisingly devoid of people. A few commuters here and there, maybe some weary longer-distance travelers, and naturally the station employees walk meagerly about as the general populace makes attempts to fully awaken. People humbly huddle around a small breakfast station, shoulder-to-shoulder, touching their handsets to the omnic’s one extended hand for payment and snatching bowls of hot cereal or coffee away from their other hand. 

Pale sunrise filters through long stretches of light-blue sky as breaks in the steel canopy above the train tracks. It shines off the meticulously (and discordant with Grand Junction’s other features) shiny marble tile. It looks like a photo that would hang, monochrome, in some hole-in-the-wall diner Jesse would frequent on his long stretches of vagrancy and solitude. _Tastes like boiled dirt_. 

Hanzo leans into his cane at the edge of the tracks, watching the errant light on the front of the incoming hypertrain grow bigger in short bursts as it stops for maintenance at various substations in the distance. Hanging off his shoulder is a large military bag, tagged with his ticket. At his feet lies Storm Bow in its case, his insistence on bringing it (maybe clinging to some hope that distance from the Watchpoint would cure his illness) still burning on his tongue. Yet another reason to confront Jesse with short clips of biting words. 

He exhales sharp through his nose, fidgeting with the shoulder strap of his duffel, wriggling around in his clumsy slacks and the thin fabric of his long-sleeve that hangs down just past his wrists and waist. When he was younger, it would slip far beyond his fingertips. It was his father’s—a man of Jesse’s height but of Hanzo’s build, massive shoulders tapered down to a thinner waist, and despite many attempts to correct, even thinner legs. 

Hanzo does not speak as Jesse ambles up to him, offering a steaming cup with an outstretched hand while taking a sip from his own. 

“Ain’t quite what you brew at home, but it ain’t coffee, either,” mutters the gunslinger. 

Hanzo takes the cup, inhales. “Ginger pu’erh,” he says. “You remember.” A memory: Jesse woke up after their first night of drinking together (one of Hanzo’s last) green in the neck and unable to leave the toilet; Hanzo brewed him pu’erh with fresh ginger to settle his stomach.

Jesse doesn’t respond, only takes a larger gulp from his cup as Hanzo takes a cautious sip from his own. The ginger is strong, spicy, but mellowed by the other faculties. It calms his throat and instantly soothes some of the ache in his legs with its warmth. Nevertheless, the taste is dollar store and teabag-oriented, and soon Hanzo is tired of the underlying blandness. 

The gunslinger is dressed plainly as well—no chestplate or chaps, just a button-up with denim and a plain belt buckle. Hair slicked back underneath the wide brim of his hat, which he tips down into his face as he inspects the hypertrain moving closer to their location. He only brought one bag, as-per-usual. On their first assignments together, Jesse would tease him about how Peacekeeper and the accompanying flashbangs all fit in one container. Hanzo would later hesitate for just one second to put an arrow through the throat of an attacker behind him, just enough to see the widening of Jesse’e eyes as someone took a swing. _You were saying?_

The hypertrain pulls up in front of them, rolls the doors open. A simple passenger cabin, undecorated, but with plush and surprisingly comfortable seats. Hanzo shoulders Storm Bow, shying from Jesse’s offer to help, into the upper compartment and leaves his duffel next to him in the seat across from the gunslinger. They show their tickets to the nondescript security officer, who nods curtly before moving on to the few other passengers in the sparsely populated cabin. 

At Colorado Springs, they switch hypertrains and head South. Hanzo watches the scenery of Colorado fade into the flat border of New Mexico all in the span of thirty-five minutes. As it does, Hanzo shudders away thoughts from two nights before, when his lover had single-handedly destroyed all of his available information on his case. Like snow, those tiny reflective pieces churned ice-cold as an image permanently inked into the archer’s gut. The moments after were a blur; Jesse helped the enfeebled, catatonic sniper into bed, wherein Hanzo stared at the ceiling all night, the numbness giving way to an ugly spike of panic. And in the morning, when Hanzo screamed at Jesse until his voice felt raw, and people had taken notice, and the gunslinger took it all in, murmuring calm justifications that Hanzo would not hear. 

He touches the small bandage on his throat, under his left ear. Very near the jugular. A few centimeters deeper with that fine blade and he might’ve ruptured the artery, bleeding out on that medbay floor. He relented—angrily and hesitantly—that Jesse had in fact saved his life by following him. The follow-up, though, Hanzo simply could not forgive. The only lead in the case, gone with the simple draw of a gaudy-looking revolver. Winston has not yet been informed of Jesse’s transgression, but Hanzo dearly wants to be present when he does. Törbjorn merely shrugged it off with a cranky yawn; the medbay renovation was nearly complete, and soon he’d be approved for leave to see his cantankerously large family. 

A swath of deep-green pine trees fades in and out, Grand Mesa’s territory and vista grow smaller and smaller, and the mountainous green turns into red, rocky mountainous desert as they pass by the sign that says ‘Welcome to New Mexico,’ and the train stops at another station to pick up a few more passengers. 

Jesse excuses himself to smoke half a cigarillo during this intermission, and Hanzo reads the mission docket once more. After a short layover in Los Alamos proper, Hanzo and Jesse will go to the old Los Alamos National Laboratory, which turned into Helix R&D3 after the Crisis, which was then abandoned when the security firm pulled out of the area and focused its attention off-shore. Ideally, Amari and Morrison will be waiting for them. Potentially a swath of 20-odd Talon agents that Hanzo will be all-but-helpless against, too. He looks up at Storm Bow’s case. Maybe an appeal to the gunslinger will yield a space where he can practice. 

He fumbles around with his handset, debating whether or not to call Genji. He decides against it eventually as Jesse plops down across from him, rubbing his scruffy chin and looking toward his partner with concerned eyes. Even through the cold shoulder Hanzo forces upon him, he can’t help taking in the sight of the other man. Poised, composed, relaxed. This is his territory, and he fits. Sun-baked arms take in the light from the window as the hypertrain reaches maximum speed again. His hat sits next to him on the chair as he leans against the window and purrs against the foggy glass for a short nap. His hair falls about his neck, no longer restrained by the Stetson, pointing eagerly at his rising and falling collarbone. 

Soon, Hanzo is asleep, too. The dreams are pleasant, fleeting, for a change. They are not visceral stabs at his psyche perpetrated by a hanging shadow or bizarre glimpses into uninvited memory. They are peaceful play-by-plays of Hanzo on scenic byways in Laos or Burma or wherever he’d been travelling before he returned to Hanamura and learned that Genji was alive. The start of everything. The sonder of precipitous moments that led up to him meeting the cowboy, and this very moment on this very train speeding by hundreds of miles of red-packed, sun-warmed Earth thrust on him by the comfortingly warm windowpane is pleasing; intoxicating. The ache and pain give in to it. Soon he feels untethered again, he feels he can roll his shoulders and take full breaths and _run_. 

And then the train comes to a stop, jerking his head forward and yanking him back into consciousness. Back to the real world, where he needs to brace a cane to stand and stretch his weakened legs. The Taos hypertrain station is a tiny nuisance to the high-rise of hills spattered with cholla that smile in the light of the summer sun. Taos, with a looming Capulin Peak at its back and a massive, churning brown vista including Taos Gorge and the Rio Grande at its front, is a sight Hanzo hadn’t really been prepared for. 

“This is one of the oldest inhabited places in civilization,” repeats an omnic standing in shawls to a group of wide-eyed tourists with stiff camera-poses as Hanzo limps by. Jesse strides proudly ahead, knowing exactly where he is and where he’s going. Hanzo doesn’t have to struggle to keep up, but he does hobble quickly, as Jesse doesn’t stop and tell him weird little stories or point out his favorite things as he usually does. Only an airy sigh purses the gunslinger’s lips as he points his cigarillo out into the desert, heat drawing off the ends of his metal fingertips in a blinding white shine. 

From here they are to rent a car and drive Southwest to Los Alamos. Hanzo watches as frothing bushels of dense juniper see them by as Jesse speeds obnoxiously quickly down the interstate. Hanzo imagines, if their relationship were in a different place, that he’d be in the middle of a length soliloquy about the beauty of the desert and some other such drivel that Hanzo would never admit to capitulating. Yet, as he eyes his lover’s sun-shaded face from the side, he can’t help but long for such a speech. He gives in; he _wants_ to hear Jesse drawl about the colors that, as Hanzo is beginning to notice more and more, are deeply ingrained in his serape, in his smell and his eyes, his breath. He is of this land, and he could easily sink into the dirt here and be at peace. 

But he turns his cheek again against the warm glass and watches the desert pass them by, sweat collecting on his brow. He remains this way, occasionally glancing at his phone, until he notices the blue route prescribed for them on the map is no longer the road they’re on. 

“Jesse, we are off-route,” he mumbles. 

Flicking cigarillo ash into a loud, open window with one hand still tight on the steering wheel, he Jesse says, “I know.” 

“What are you doing?” 

Jesse, consistent with his disturbing ability to shock Hanzo in literally any situation, cracks a grin. “You know what tomorrow is?” 

He checks his phone, looks at the date, and sinks his head back into his chair. It happened somewhere between the fighting and the case and the defensive stratagem and Winston, but still. How? How in the world did he forget?

“Please, no,” the archer croaks, eyes rolling back up into his head. 

“You’re gonna love it. I ran it by Winston already, we’re takin’ a small detour. Real small, trust me. One day. Maybe a day and a half.” 

“I do not care about my birthday. I care about completing this mission, which you have already impeded with your foolishness once already,” he shoots, heavy with chagrin and punctuated by a dismissive waddle of the fingers. 

“You care about the wrong stuff, then. I care about _you_.” The cowboy takes his eyes wholly off the road to study Hanzo’s face for a second. 

“Then you would have shown some restraint the other night.” 

Jesse punches the dash, denting the metal as easily as a blanket with his prosthetic. “I ain’t havin’ this conversation again.” 

“Because you know it is true.” 

The car speeds up further. Jesse spits the cigarillo out and slides the window back up. “Stop pushin’ my buttons.” 

“Of all the unprofessional, crass—”

“I _said_ I ain’t havin’ this conversation again.” His metal fist closes around the steering wheel, bending it like play dough to an awkward, skewed angle. “Take a nap or tuck ‘n roll, cuz I’m drivin’ and we’re goin’ where I say we’re goin’.” 

Hanzo no longer feels warmth through the windowpane. The coal fire of a sun with its dull oppression no longer reaches him. His chest is a cavern, squeezing a gust of frigid air through clenched teeth as the archer fumes against his headrest, staring up at the rumbling ceiling of the vehicle. What wells up in the wintry capacity that is his nervous system? Not once does Hanzo consider the word “hate,” but maybe that’s what it is. Maybe he just _hates_ what Jesse did. Maybe he hates Jesse. 

The thought turns to a bitter ash on his tongue. 

***

The car pulls into a granite parking lot at the end of a long stretch of solitary asphalt. Hanzo blinks back the remnants of a nap as the adobe façade comes into view, and the turquoise signage next to its courtyard becomes legible.

OJO CALIENTE MINERAL SPA & RESORT 

“You must be joking,” Hanzo hisses into the crook of his elbow as he wipes dead skin from the corners of his mouth.

“Don’t have a punchline for ya,” replies the cowboy with a tired grimace. He puts out his third cigarillo for the day—Hanzo swallows sheets of guilt at the cowboy’s obvious dismay—and stretches into what is slowly becoming the evening. 

Hanzo disembarks from the car, warm and groaning from the long ride, and shoulders his baggage. The air here is thinner, mountainous, less oxygenated. It smells of hot dirt and dry flora, the genuine article from which Hanzo has huffed previews in the back of Jesse’s neck. He shudders away from the thought as the gunslinger shoulders past him, grabs his bag, and walks quickly ahead. 

The sniper takes a deep breath, focuses on his surroundings. He wishes, longing in the pit of his stomach, that this was in a different context. He wishes he could admit out loud that he’d always wanted to be here, ever since he met Jesse. He always wanted to see the place his lover called home. He’d heard story after story, lengthy anecdote after lengthy anecdote, and none of it compared to the real thing. He sighs into the heavy breeze, tips his head back, and sneezes. The action sends chills down his spine, which quickly turn into nets of dull ache in all of his movable joints. 

He follows. Inside is a long black-granite reception table centered unusually high above marble flooring. Opposite Hanzo are large, spotless glass double-doors to a high-shade flagstone courtyard. Lightly paneled and intricately carved, bleached wood ramadas stand high above sunbathing chairs. Hanzo marvels; the architecture is gorgeous. Woven corbels mark each threshold, holding painted _vigas_ in place high above. 

As Jesse effortlessly breezes his way through check-in, Hanzo stands abruptly timid in the air conditioning, letting the fans of white hair around his face fall in sweaty curls plastered to his face. The gunslinger does not acknowledge Hanzo as he strides through a set of double-doors to the left with keycards in hand. 

Saltillo tile and dine-blanketed walls greet Hanzo down the vast hallway, up a flight of wrought-iron-braced stairs, and down an identical hallway to their room. Jesse slips a keycard into Hanzo’s fingers before he jerks the door open and walks inside. 

A four-poster bed, again tinged with wrought iron. Shining and well-kept, but incredibly old wood flooring. A staunch kitchenette with a Talavera-style backsplash, complete with full amenities. A sliding wooden door to the bathroom, which smells of deep cedar and generic conditioner; a pungent combination. 

This is the room Hanzo finds himself in, staring down a somber McCree as he undresses. He watches the gunslinger unstuck his shirt to himself, peel it off with his undershirt, unbuckle his jeans. He sits on the bed and fiddles with his own shirt, unsure of what to do with himself. Wordless, anachronistic movements punctuate Jesse’s mood as he clambers into the shower. Hanzo hears the water squeak on, hears the deep rumbling sigh as presumably ice cold water hits the tan, possibly red back of Jesse’s neck. He stares up at the ceiling, not thinking of the mission, or much of anything. He takes his shirt all the way off. 

He will turn forty tomorrow. He swallows an ugly truth along with a sip of water. He glances at the cane. Already he needs help to walk, and he’s barely turning forty tomorrow. At the opposite end of his mind, he is turning _forty_. A long and distant memory seems like it was yesterday: Genji, on the riverbank, with the fireflies. The sparrow, the gleaming visor streaking lime green in the background, flashing off the willow trees like a pair of lost headlights. A recurring dream Hanzo would actually welcome at this point. 

Jesse steps out of the shower, toweling off. He strides across the room, more purpose in his step, more affection in his eyes, and sets his bare knee in between Hanzo’s legs. 

“Got us a private spring.” He sounds smoother now, hydrated and refreshed. Excited, maybe, behind the hesitation or caution in his words. He speaks softly, as he would into Hanzo’s ear. 

“It is too hot.” Hanzo looks away from McCree’s bared collarbone, the towel sagging just around his soft waist. 

Jesse strains, leans over Hanzo, wraps metal around fleshy fingers. “Naw.” A deliberate murmur. “Come on. Please.” 

Hanzo swallows loudly. “We will overheat.” 

“Hopin’ so.” Jesse is almost straddling Hanzo now, thick arms on either side of the archer’s tired face. “Rinse off and come with me, darlin’. We’ll talk. It’ll make your legs feel better. Real nice. Promise.” 

The thought that a mineral soak might actually help his joints spurs Hanzo into action. He, with no small hesitation, undresses and stands beneath a torrent of lukewarm water. In some ways it washes the sourness in the air away, slick black strands of hair gushing out dirt, sweat, travel toxins. He throws back an entire pitcher of water, urinates. 

Jesse is bare-chested and holding a second set of swimwear for Hanzo when he leaves the bathroom. A dusting of dark hair follows Hanzo’s eyes down to the tight black trunks his lover has donned. They hug thick, solid thighs and complement perfectly the area just above. Again, the archer swallows loudly as he slips on his own pair—an off-yellow, one-size-too-big set of clown pants. 

“Switch me,” insists the sniper. 

Over a soft, unassuming chortle: “make me.” 

***

The flagstone is furiously hot to the touch of an outstretched toe. Hanzo has to quickly retreat inside to purchase a pair of sandals before he can cross over the wide courtyard area, bombed with patches of sunflower and blooming yucca. Naturally, the cold pool is more popular this time of year; gaggles of silent people relax just on the surface. For a second, Hanzo thinks back to the first time he saw Irene’s bar in Grand Junction. The carelessness, the comfort in a peaceful life that eludes him (as it should). As he canes by, he fixates on a younger couple—two sultry-looking women entwined in each other’s legs under the fire of the sun. He stares for a long time, until Jesse walks back and prods him in the shoulder. 

McCree has purchased them a private pool in an enclosed area. The water steams in a circular pool in the center, surrounded by thick, brown-red adobe walls. A sunken plinth lies just behind the pool, garnished with wildflowers and a small table. The pool is lipped with painted flagstone that breaks for an assembly of rocks, out of which pours a pleasing-sounding stream. 

Hanzo has already fallen for the silence of the place. Wildlife in the trees, hot wind on the air, and McCree walking directly into the scalding water with no hesitation or secondary words. 

Even here, even with the opportunity to meditate and distinguish a space far from his mission and his forlorn and morose identity, he cannot let it go. The image of the holodiscs pausing in the air at the very top of their arc. The way all of them shattered. The way they rained down, light as leaves, reflecting the searchlights of the Watchpoint as hundreds of tiny mirrors. Hanzo swears he heard them scream. All of them, in Gérard’s voice. The rippling agony spreading through the night, long fingers down Hanzo’s neck, choking him in his sleep, thumbs pressing one over the other against his windpipe, crushing, weighing—

“Hanzo.” 

The archer starts, blinks back nameless tears, and stars down at the water just below his feet. 

“It’ll be hot for one second, promise. C’mere.” 

He toes the surface. It stings, but is somehow inviting. He edges further. Ankle, leg, knee, waist. And then it’s up to his collarbone, surging with relentless heat, but nevertheless soothing. He moves through it, breaking the depths with his staunch body, and comes to rest across from Jesse. He feels it perforate his skin, seep into his bones, mixing with the cold ache. He melts there, glistening with water in the desert sun. Staring up at the sky, feeling the minerals pulling at the darkness in his soul. 

“What d’you think?” 

Hanzo does not answer, only sinks lower into the water. 

“I know you’re mad, darlin’. But can I tell you somethin’?” 

His eyes open, he looks over at Jesse. The water meets his defined chest; he has two arms rested on the lip just outside the pool. He sits underneath the little waterfall, letting the babbling stream coarse over his neck. Hanzo considers for a moment, then nods. It’s as if Jesse’s voice matches the water. Soothing, warm, like the soft glow of candlelight the scatters the shadows in the corners of his mind. 

“When I was in Deadlock… they got this initiation. They take you out into the wilderness—for me, it was Pecos—and they turn you loose. You get a shotgun, a half-empty canteen, and a knife. And you gotta get your shit together on your own out there. You find your way back to the base camp, rain or shine, or you die. Simple as that. The closer you get, the more they fire on you. The more starvin’ dogs they turn loose. You got nothin’ but your wits and your knife out there.” He looks up at the sky. “Ain’t told anyone this before.” 

Hanzo edges closer to Jesse. 

“I did it in a single day. Not to blow my own horn. I reckon maybe I can get you to do that.” He pauses for a wink in Hanzo’s direction. “But I saw somethin’ out there in the desert. The mountains here are wild, Hanzo. I don’t think you can really _see_ em until they want you to. The view in Santa Fe don’t sink in ‘til you stare long enough. ‘Til you look ‘em straight in the eyes and prove you’re ready.

“Well I saw ‘em that day. There was this spot of underbrush, but it was high up. I was almost done, and I was hidin’ from sniper fire. I could see the base camp and everything. I made a sore impression on ‘em when I first joined. I think they were tryin’ everything they could to keep me from it. But I felt the mesa on the back of my neck, and I turned. It was high noon, and the mountain had this perfect shadow that ended just at my feet—which didn’t make any sense. And then I was totally blind. The shadow that came down from the mesa took my vision. But, even as I couldn’t see anything, I could see _everythin’_. My eyes saw the base camp and all the snipers and all the dogs and all their movements and what they would do before they did it. The mountains gave me that, Hanzo.” 

Hanzo tilts his head, licks his lips. The water is the same temperature as him now, the sweat beading on his brow feels like nothing. He feels like nothing. He dissolves, ice into hot coffee, sleet into magma. 

“They gave me the Dead-Eye. Ana taught me how to force it, but it’s always there. I can see, Hanzo. I saw the Watchpoint the second I got there. I saw the way you looked at those holodiscs. It’s the same way you looked at sake. Same way you looked at Genji’s face the first time. It wasn’t right, Hanzo. They shouldn’t have had that power. But, I guess there’s shit in this world nobody can explain.”

He pops his neck, moves out from under the waterfall, and moves up to Hanzo. “I wish you had seen your face when I walked in on you in the medbay.” He frowns, deep. His lip might be trembling. Hanzo furrows his brow, moves in close. “You-you didn’t…” he looks up, meets eyes. Packed earth wet with rainwater. His lip _is_ trembling. “That wasn’t you, Hanzo. That wasn’t you. I don’t even have the words. And I _saw_ those fuckin’ discs doin’ that to you, and I didn’t do anything until it was too late. And I’m sorry. I fucked up. I’m fucked up.” 

Hanzo leans back. 

“I shouldn’t have left you. I should’ve done a lot different. But I did, and it happened, and now all I can do is try to fix it. Try to give you a good birthday. I know you ain’t had a good one for a while, huh?” He smiles, stomach-flipping sweet, eyes doused. 

Hanzo takes one look at that smile. Like a photograph. The flash of an old-fashioned camera bulb. He cuts across the water, smooth and silent, moving the easiest he’s moved in weeks. 

They touch lips first. Hanzo presses hard, longing. Then their bodies follow suit, Jesse wrapping his arms tight around Hanzo, and Hanzo doing the same. Under the water, in the mineral, with the calm, silent earth to watch around them, they meld. Sheets of fire, golden-brown and iridescent, wash over Hanzo. He, in turn, surges forward with a rush of mint, fresh packed snow, the moon craning just over a billowing cloud. 

It could be days Hanzo spends in Jesse’s arms. Days with his fingers playing in Jesse’s moist hair, breathing into the warm water pooled on his neck. 

“Got another thing for ya,” says the gunslinger. Hanzo fidgets into Jesse’s chest in response. He feels the bigger man reach up and over the lip of the pool, rummaging around on the low table in the wildflower patch. “Had ‘em put it here cuz I like a good performance, yeah?” 

“What are you up to?” asks Hanzo with suspicion. “I haven’t entirely forgiven you.” 

“Perfect timing, then.” Jesse has his fist closed around something. 

“What are you doing.” 

He opens his hand. 

Hanzo glitches, trying to process what he’s seeing. It’s blurry. Everything is blurry. Fresh wetness appears on his face. Jesse’s metal fingertips pry open the small, black box. 

“Marry me.” 

Pressure in his ears. Is it fluid? Did he submerge too deep? Was his face always this hot? Did he forget English again? 

“H-how is this perfect timing,” he stutters. 

Jesse frowns. “Think about it. I got in the way of your duty. I did somethin’ unforgivable, and even though you were madder than a wet mountain lion at me, you didn’t want to talk to me, you didn’t wanna _look_ at me. But even in all that cow shit, even on that train ride and that drive, you didn’t even _think_ about leavin’ me.” 

There it is. The bullet. From the revolver. The words, from the mouth, thick lips, dusted with deep brown hair. 

“Don’t answer right now,” McCree says. “You aren’t the type to be sprung upon.” Another wink.

Hanzo resists the urge to scoff, still completely disoriented. One thought flitters through his brain, juvenile and reactionary: can this man just stop being right about everything for once? 

***

Two revelations come to Hanzo on the trek back to the hotel room. The sun is dying on the horizon, splitting everything into harsh, red lines through the paneled wood of the ramadas. 

Realization one: he doesn’t need the cane. He walks—with finesse—on his own two feet. There is still a certain rubberiness to the way he has to fling his legs forward, but the ache has mostly subsided. 

Realization two: he is utterly, absolutely, exhausted. Whatever the springs did to the illness, it’s left him feeling drained in absolution. 

He eyes the bed with a shameful lust as they shower and dry off together. This is what Hanzo really wanted out of New Mexico—to be able to look out the window and see formations of rock piled high, curving out of each other, and the guardianship of the mountains that reach at the sky and surround everything in their embrace. To be able to see that next to Jesse, touching shoulders, mouths. Comfortable in Jesse’s home, as he has been in his. 

He curls up next to the gunslinger, edging into his side. Jesse drops an arm around him. He rests an idle hand on the tufts across his chest. It wanders up to the clavicle, down to the the belly, and back up. 

“I love you, darlin’, ” slurs McCree, drifting off, eyes half-open. “More than I ever loved anyone.” 

Hanzo doesn’t say anything, he just presses his lips into Jesse’s shoulder, lingering there just long enough to say, _I feel the same way_. 

Hanzo faces a cavalcade of dreams that night, and none of them feature Gérard. He pictures one in particular, one that stands out from the rest: just an empty view of the steep drop of cliff side outside his bedroom in Hanamura. In this dream, he’s adolescent, his hands are smaller, his arms are smaller. He can still pull on the string of the bow, but he brings it too close to his face, and his shoulders aren’t aligned with the draw, and so they pull left. He thinks, in this time, he’s impressive because he’s leared how to do the curve trick. His father slams his heel into the back of Hanzo’s ankle when he messes up, toppling him to the ground. 

His belly is full of his mother’s _oden_ here. He remembers it: this is Genji’s first night drinking. He will come home leaning against the pillars in the central study for support. His father will put him to bed, and push him as hard as he can in the morning. This is the night before Genji stops coming home as often. Where he spends more time at the arcade, or sneaking forty-ounces out of convenience stores. He’ll dye his hair green soon. Everything goes downhill from here. 

But tonight, the moon is soft, Fuji-san beams happily in the distance, and he mastered the curve trick today. There are things—as always with Hanzo—that silently torture him in the back of his mind. Some gremlin of worry that hammers acupuncture needles into the soft tissue of his brain. But tonight is one of the nights they are easily ignorable, and although these nights will become less and less frequent until he is to meet Jesse, he can rest. 

***

Hanzo awakens with a night breeze filtering in through the window. To be expected, since they went to bed so early. He looks over and, to no surprise, Jesse is still snoozing happily next to him. He moves to the bathroom and downs a glass of water, then steps back out into the bedroom. Nights in New Mexico smell as if the plants are asleep, too. The breeze that was coarse, dusty, and wrought with heat is now melodic, soothing and chilly. The moon is almost as oppressive as the sun here; it lights up everything in blue-gray detail. 

Jesse turns over on the bed. The sheets slip off of him slightly, revealing a bare thigh, tense with musculature. 

Hanzo gulps at the warmth emerging in his pelvis. He crawls onto the bed, straddling Jesse, on all fours. 

“Jesse,” he whispers into his neck. 

The cowboy shifts, but otherwise doesn’t respond. 

“Jesse,” he says again, slipping off his own underwear. 

A half-grumble, half-groan. Jesse cranes his neck, eyes still closed. 

Hanzo slips a hand into the sheets, brushing against the gunslinger’s inner thigh, and working his way upwards. “Jeeeeessseeee,” he says, just a hint louder, drawn out, and closer to the earlobe. 

“Hnn,” Jesse’s eyes open slightly, and he yawns. 

Hanzo has a full grip on him now, and begins stroking, gentle and loose. 

“Hanzuh?” he says, eyes opening fully. Hanzo sits on his legs, pressing body down into Jesse’s, and moves against him a little harder. “Oh, holy fuck. Holy shit, okay,” sputters the half-awake lover. He glances at the clock. “Happy birthday, darlin’.” 

Hanzo merely takes McCree’s hand and affirms it against himself, guiding him up and down in unison with his strokes. 

“What do you wanna do?” 

“Protection?” The archer licks his lips. 

“In the draaaaawer,” Jesse says against a rough moan as Hanzo increases speed. 

Hanzo moves off him, lets Jesse adjust himself in the bed while he rummages around in the cabinetry. His hands find the small package in the darkness. 

“You ever wanted to try anything crazy? You can do anything you want, birthday boy,” Jesse croons. 

“We do not have the supplies for anything I would want to try,” murmurs Hanzo, tossing a condom at Jesse before resuming his positioning—and motions—from before. 

“What, then? Business as usual?” 

“Put it on me,” commands Hanzo. 

Jesse the excited teen leers at Hanzo’s form in the darkness, assumes a firm handle, and rolls the condom onto him. In one motion, singular and elegantly smooth. 

Hanzo breathes haughty, wrapping a hand around Jesse’s hard calf. He raises it above toward the ceiling. 

“Oh, okay,” says McCree, gushing with widened eyes as Hanzo lets his leg go slack over his tattooed shoulder. 

Hanzo takes his other leg, but Jesse finishes the motion before he can guide him. Hanzo leans forward, edging Jesse further onto his back. He turns his head to the side, kissing his ankle. 

“Mm,” the man breathes. 

Then Hanzo bites, hard, into the soft flesh between Jesse’s calf and his foot. 

“Ah!,” Jesse says, straining, but before he can even move, Hanzo has pressed inside, flesh against flesh. “Ah,” he says again, slower and drawn, moving one hand up to Hanzo’s shoulder. 

His thrusts are calm, slow, but powerful, and each one accompanies a tense gnawing on whatever softness Hanzo’s mouth can find. Jesse doesn’t seem to know what noises to make—he stops mid-yelp and crescendos into a yawning, wet sigh as Hanzo nudges against his thighs, exhaling sharp with each errant pulse. 

Jesse strokes himself in unison with the thrusts, fleshy hand wandering up and down Hanzo’s flexing body, up around his face, knotting themselves in his hair. His indecisive noises become slow chants, soft exclamations of Hanzo’s name as he twists himself into the sheets. 

Hanzo pulls out. “Turn over.” 

“Yes _sir_ ,” mouths McCree, out of breath, as he swings himself around as quickly as possible. 

The sniper resumes, wrapping a tight grip with the whole of his arms around Jesse’s waist as he enters again, thrusting harder, pressing his lips against Jesse’s shoulders. He bites here, too, punctuating each of his movements with a low growl as he marks the back of his lover. He loosens his arms’ grip, slips fingertips up and down Jesse’s abdomen, brushing against the grain of the hair there. Pure, unadulterated warmth blossoms in the center of Hanzo’s chest. Every sensory motion increases its width until it radiates throughout his shoulders. 

Somewhere between the moist groans and fingertips pressed into hard flesh, Hanzo realizes he feels no ache. No rubberiness. No shadow at the top of his spine. 

“Ohh, fuck Hanzo. I don’t even deserve you,” Jesse says as Hanzo stills one hand on his chest and the other slack against his hardness, beating hard and fast into his pelvis. “Oh boy, here it comes darlin’,” he clips short, wild shouts as he strains forward into Hanzo’s hand. His entire body tenses. Hanzo bites down hard on his shoulder blade as he comes, a rugged howl escaping the hollow of his throat. 

“Jesse,” Hanzo mouths against the center of his back, loosening, softening, and finally exiting. A short _thwap_ of the condom in the wastebasket ends their soiree. 

Hanzo slumps down next to McCree, who rolls over and regains his breathing while staring at the ceiling. 

“’Scuze my lack of decorum, Mr. Shimada, but was that make-up sex?” 

“I suppose,” replies the archer, wrapping his hand up in Jesse’s. 

“Ain’t had make-up sex before. Wow.” He snorts. “Damn. Fuck.” 

Hanzo lets out a low, short laugh. “Agreed.” 

“How you feelin’?” 

Hanzo frowns.

“Better.” 

***

After another short soak in the morning, Jesse checks them out at the front desk and buys them his acclaimed favorite for breakfast—a cowboy bowl. Hanzo laughs out loud at the name, a sound to which Jesse always replies with wonderment. Black beans, papas cubanas, chorizo, and a fried egg on top. Jesse practically inhales his, relishing in the rarity of his favorite food. Hanzo is perplexed by the difference between red and green chile (he prefers the bitterness of the red, and despises the texture of the green, to which Jesse responds with an offended grimace), but nevertheless heartily enjoys the food. 

The morning is still crisp and cool, and although he is officially forty, Hanzo feels a lightness in his stomach that hasn’t been present in weeks. Los Alamos comes up just after an hour has passed. It’s a long climb up a steep road, but Hanzo sees the landscape stretched out before him from a height he hadn’t experienced before. Rock formations stretch and engulf each other, layered with sediment and burning white in the sun’s rays. Here, too, the landscape is fraught with juniper. The mountain they climb is white in color and porous in texture; Hanzo deduces volcanic. 

The town proper is largely unimpressive to Hanzo. It looks a bit like Grand Junction, a little worn down here and there, although hints of wealth are scattered throughout. The downtown plaza is rich with green, includes a fountain and well-kept grass. Cotton trees dot a cliff high above—this area is Hanzo’s favorite. Jesse points out familiar landmarks (he swoons at a bagel shop he insists is sacred) with an excited tone. Hanzo enjoys hearing him gush about the area. It’s through Jesse’s grand appreciation that Hanzo finds his own. 

“This’ the labs,” mutters Jesse as they skip through an abandoned tollbooth on a discordantly industrial road just outside the downtown district. “Ana’ll want to meet at night. We got the whole day to do somethin’ else,” he continues as they pass right by the lab complex. It’s a massive cluster of buildings that stretch down into a forested area. The road narrows to a simple two-lane as they breeze by a chain-link, barbed wire fence that separates them from the businesslike exterior of the labs. They look much like the Watchpoint; unused, broken-down, partially reclaimed by nature. 

They take another steep climb, the road bending and curving at will. Wherever sharp turns can fit, one can find them. The landscape gets greener here as the elevation gets higher. Hanzo feels the air thin out on him as Jesse rolls the window down. 

“Here it comes,” Jesse says. 

Hanzo piques, raising an eyebrow. 

“Look out the window,” he explains. Hanzo follows, watching the thick foliage blur by. 

Then it hits him. One second, it’s nothing but the dense forest. The next, the car rounds a corner, and a vast, perfectly colored landscape tilts up at the most pleasing possible angle, as if they’ve entered a massive soup bowl. Soft winds almost visibly sweep the short-cut flora. Green with grass, dotted with a few trees on raised hills here and there, it stretches until it hits the horizon. The sky, a glowing blue, touches the vibrant green in a way that almost looks unnatural. Hanzo’s jaw drops. This? In the middle of the desert? 

“This is Valles Caldera,” says Jesse. “Ground’s too hot for trees to grow on, so it’s just grass.”

“Caldera? A volcano?” asks Hanzo. 

Jesse smiles. “Yup. Happy birthday.” 

“Thank you,” Hanzo says softly. He nearly presses his face against the glass. He feels Jesse’s hand wrap around his own. 

“Wanna take a walk? It’s private property, but. You know. Whatever,” says the gunslinger around a self-satisfied grin. Hanzo smirks. He’s earned it. 

“Yes.” 

Jesse parks the car. They walk all around the caldera. Hanzo takes the cane as insurance, and although he still feels stiffness in his joints, the ache is gone, and he walks freely. The combination of absolute astonishment at the forces of this place and the freedom of his limbs cools Hanzo under the surging sun. Jesse tells him about how he used to come up here with his adoptive mother—there is a hiking trail a few miles further South that leads to a trail of waterfalls and eventually a coursing stream. Hanzo takes the opportunity to try running. He removes his shoes, digs his heels into the fine grass, and sprints, letting the wind wash through his ears as a calming whistle. Like a carnival animal finally set free, Hanzo runs until he can’t catch his breath. 

His lover keeps up, but the bigger man lumbers just a little more slowly. Hanzo pile drives him into the dirt a couple of times, playfully tugging at his ears before descending into a maddeningly sweet kiss. 

Jesse brought trail mix and a canteen. They sit on a high, white rock with a gorgeous view of the sweeping plain while they eat. 

“Last M&M’s mine,” claims Jesse. 

Hanzo looks straight ahead, plucks the candy out of the bag, and pops it in his mouth. 

“You fuck,” the cowboy grins. 

Hanzo shoves him off the rock, watching him tumble onto the soft grass. 

“You are easy.” 

“And you’re violent today,” Jesse laughs, dusting himself off. 

Hanzo frowns. “I will cease. I have not had this much energy…” 

“Naw,” says Jesse, “I like it. I like seein’ you enjoy yourself. It’s been a while since you really smiled, sweetheart.” He nuzzles Hanzo’s neck, eliciting a sharp chortle at the prickliness. 

Hanzo stills, bats the gunslinger’s head away. “Let me see.” 

“Huh?” 

“The… steam. From the bath. I could not see the ring.” 

Jesse crows. “You were tearin’ up, don’t pretend.” He winks. 

“Give me the ring, you ass,” mutters Hanzo, heating at the cheeks. 

Jesse fishes in his pocket, sticking his tongue out with effort. He produces the small, black box, and opens it for Hanzo, who takes it betwee his fingers and holds it up to the sun. 

“This is…” 

“Had it custom made. I uh… took a lil’ detour when I was followin’ Reaper to pick it up.” 

The ring is adorned with a small stone—subtle, the way Hanzo likes. It’s not as deep as sapphire, but icy blue. Topaz, maybe. The rest is rose gold, a subtle heat to counteract the wintriness of the stone. It’s plain, but Hanzo notices the little intricacies: a carved latticework just under the crux of the stone. Hanzo peers closer. 

“Genji told me you’d like it.” 

Inside the carving is a small, colored image of a koi. 

“He said it was your favorite story growin’ up, that if a koi swam upstream on the Yellow River—we went there once—it’d turn into a dragon.” 

Hanzo stares intensely, almost blinding himself with the reflection of the stone in the sun. The magnitude of the earthquake in his chest has reached well past ten, and his vision is growing blurry again. 

“Woah, hey there. Darlin’?” 

Hanzo remains silent for a few more seconds, mouth in a taut line. The stone looks like a mountain of ice emerging from a fountain of fire. A glacier in the desert. 

He swallows, slips the ring onto his finger. 

“We elope.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For reference, there are some references to New Mexican stuff throughout this chapter I thought it'd be important to explain. 
> 
> -Ramadas are a shade-structure, usually made of lighter wood. They're basically a little porch enclosure. I don't think this is specifically New Mexican, but Ojo Caliente is a real place and they have them. 
> 
> -Saltillo tile is Spanish, usually a reddish orange, with thick individuals. They're heavy and usually kind of fragile. 
> 
> -Corbels are the end points of a viga, which are the big round logs you see in the roofs of a lot of adobe housing. (Adobe is a type of building material, very weather resistant and versatile, and is essentially made from mud and stucco). 
> 
> -A dine blanket is Navajo in origin. In our homogenized, oppressive American society, they're the "typical Indian blanket." 
> 
> -Talavera-style is a kind of tiling, usually quite colorful. 
> 
> -Chile is a vegetable, quite spicy most of the time. Green chile is just barely ripened, and is usually chopped up and stewed. Red is basically aged chile that has to be crushed into a fine powder and simmered with lard into water, and thus becomes a kind of sauce, thus the texture difference Hanzo despises. 
> 
> I think that's everything. Let me know if you have questions.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is fairly violent, and contains what may some consider rather disturbing imagery. As a followup, there is more of that coming in the next few chapters. 
> 
> A few quick things before you continue with this story: 
> 
> We are entering the climax of the narrative, and I just want to say that even though I don't have a huge audience I want to thank each and every one of you that has been reading since the beginning. This is the first time I've undertaken a project this big and while I ***think*** it's gone well, I'm not always the most confident in my techniques. As all the mysteries begin falling into place here, I wanted to say that this fic comes out of a really deep love for this universe as it unfolds before us in the story events. I hope you all are enjoying this random conjecture as much as I have been in parallel to the hints Blizzard has been giving us about the canon.
> 
> Please read the notes at the end. They contain some announcements for those who might want to see a little bit more of this Overwatch universe.

Hanzo missed Storm Bow more than he thought. 

It is that calculated, frozen second, the one where everything drops into place, just before he lets go of the drawstring. And the moment afterwards, when the black-lash in the air lifts the grayed edges of his hair. The simultaneous exhale, relishing in the fractured moment of time before an arrowtip sinks into someone’s throat or their skull or even their stomach. Or the hollow of a practice target. Even the succinct whistle in the air. They fit into their places in Hanzo’s psyche with no effort, as if they’d always been there, patiently waiting for him to heft his bow and take aim once again. 

On the other hand, it is heavier than he remembered. The resistance, consistently calculated and adjusted with Hanzo’s stratagem, seems stronger than it should. Hanzo knows it is because his arms are weaker, his stance is weaker, and his eyes are weaker. Nonetheless, he lashes out at Storm Bow, cursing at it under his breath, squeezing the tip so hard his fingers turn red and white. 

The tree in front of him is lousy with dismantled arrows. 

Most of them have hit their target, the painted splash in the center, but others have frayed about the edges or have missed the trunk entirely. Hanzo hasn’t had a margin of error this wide—even on horseback—since he was a novice. He takes in the scene before him; a rendering of his pride. Further, proof that the affliction is still upon him, in subtler ways. 

“How’s it goin’,” mumbles Jesse from behind him, approaching with a large, white paper bag in his arms. 

“Less than perfect,” Hanzo simmers, pulls the drawstring. “Which is to say, heinously unacceptable.” 

“Brought dinner,” offers the gunslinger. 

“In a moment.” 

“Probably need to be at the labs soon,” says Jesse. 

Hanzo grits his teeth. “In. A. Moment.” His eyes linger for just a second on the ring—the frosted topaz in a mirror of gold, sinking into flame with the sunset on its back. 

He inhales. Draws. Releases, breathes out. The arrow hits its mark. 

“G’job, now let’s eat.” Jesse licks his lips. 

“I took too long,” Hanzo mutters, readying another. 

Jesse sighs, stands in front of Hanzo just ahead of the target tree, and drops to a sitting position. He produces a bundle of aluminum foil around the bag and casually begins to unwrap it. 

“What do you think you are doing?” 

“Eatin’.” Jesse smiles around a mouthful of burrito. 

“Move out of the way.” 

In response, Jesse begins to chew loudly. He offers a burrito to Hanzo. 

“For— _fine,_ ” says the sniper, snatching the burrito out of Jesse’s outstretched hand. 

The gunslinger barks a low laugh. 

They eat. Seventy-Six and Ana may be in the immediate area, he recounts. They know a lot more about the situation than Hanzo does. It irritates him. If Seventy-Six had been more forthcoming before, a lot may have been avoided. There is anger, too: Commander Morrison is responsible, in part, for Widowmaker. He is responsible for the Watchpoint. He may be responsible for Reaper in a way, too, for all they know. Jack Morrison, ethereal presence, the name, is still at the center of everything. His is the mind of knowledge Hanzo seeks. The anticipation of the evening’s events fights his appetite, but he wolfs the food down nonetheless; he needs energy. 

“Yer first time out in almost a month, huh?” says McCree. 

Hanzo shakes his head. “I am merely a lookout.” 

“Sure, you got yer strong-arm already.” He flexes his muscles, eliciting an eyeroll from Hanzo. “But who knows, maybe that thing’ll taste some blood, huh?” He nods toward Storm Bow. 

“If it is lucky,” rasps the sniper. 

Jesse smiles. “Nice ‘n morbid.” 

“I am an assassin,” Hanzo shrugs. “It is how the family copes. Genji used to put on in much a similar fashion.” 

Hanzo’s phone rings. The number is blocked. Hanzo eyes Jesse, who smirks back nonchalantly. He answers. 

“Ana Amari,” Hanzo says into the phone. 

“Now that you two have had your fun,” rings the elderly oice on the other line. “It’s time to get to work. L-Bloc, half an hour.” _Click_. 

“L-Block,” Hanzo regurgitates. “Thirty minutes.” 

“Let’s roll,” says Jesse, lumbering to a stand. 

***

In the sunset, the labs look more like the Watchpoint than Hanzo had hoped. One comforting difference is that the buildings here are brick, not concrete, and settle a mellow gold in the light. The windows are just as dirty, however. Concrete pathways between structures are cracked, fissured, and missing in some places. Various plant life has taken over much of the industrial aspect—several sections of power breakers are lined with dry moss and brown vine. Many of the buildings are missing their signage, but Hanzo guesses the layout after a few minutes of trial and error. He guides the duo to the block that should be labeled “L.” 

“Empty,” Hanzo remarks. 

“Yep. I reckon Talon shoulda been here and through by now. Wonder if they’re waitin’ somewhere else.” 

“Perhaps they are merely hiding,” says Hanzo, squinting into the dying light. 

“Naw,” Jesse says with certainty. “They ain’t here.” 

Hanzo remembers the mineral spa, Jesse’s hints about the Dead-Eye. He frowns, but relents. 

The architecture has changed within L-Block. The largest visible building is present here, laden with mirror panels and shaped like a giant staircase. The area proper looks much more state-of-the-art than the chained and barbed-wire areas before. Buildings of similar paned glass and of various shapes stretch four or five aisles up. A good deal of them here are also adobe, squared off and again uniquely shaped. Pale brown and stained orange by the sunset.

Clusters of these buildings gather themselves before them, once inhabited by some of the greatest minds from ages before omnics. Before Overwatch. Hanzo thinks briefly that this place once represented the peak of scientific thought, before humanity almost destroyed itself. While they are privileged with things like hypertrains and space stations and better medicine, Hanzo thinks of the ongoing struggle to rebuild society, to extinguish the harsh burn of the Omnic Crisis. And of organizations like Talon, whose goal seems to be plunging civilization back into darkness. Or of Overwatch, whose bloated sense of agency may be getting it into more trouble than it is capable of handling. Whose rebirth comes from the same darkness as its death. 

They come across a once elegant, decorative garden. Sprawling vines crawl up from the indent it forms in the concrete, overtaking nearby benches and a small, dried up fountain in the center. A rectangle of yellow light is thrown over the fountain, stretching its shadow up against the wall across the courtyard. 

“Look,” says Jesse as they round the corner. An open door is the source of the light. Inside, a dim light bulb buzzes in its bare receptacle. “S’pose that’s it.” 

They cross the garden, stepping through dried up flower beds that crunch and give underfoot. A plain, white hallway with wooden floors stretches before them through the ajar door. 

It’s sudden when it breezes across Hanzo’s neck. The moment. He is in someone’s sights. 

“Get down,” barks Jesse, as if on cue. They both sweep into the juniper next to the fountain, silent and swift.

Nothing happens. No sounds of a rifle. 

“They are toying with us.” 

“Or signalin’ us. Probably testin’ us, too,” says McCree, emerging from the brush and looking out into the courtyard. Hanzo follows suit, peeking around the frayed edges of juniper branches, eyeing the tableau. Nothing stirs. 

“Something is wrong,” says Hanzo. It is too empty, too quiet, and all at once too loud. 

“Ain’t right, that’s for sure,” agrees the cowboy. 

The air has gone cold although the sun has not quite died out. Something in the atmosphere beyond the dust and disuse sets off air raid sirens in Hanzo’s skull. He peers down the alley to the left as Jesse strains to look behind them. Slowly, the shadows of the buildings are taking over the sunlight. 

“This reeks like Blackwatch,” says Jesse under his breath. “Now I’m bein’ watched from too many damned angles.” 

“Let us find a corner,” says Hanzo. 

Jesse’s jaw drops open as he scans by the open door. Hanzo quickly follows his gaze. 

Ana stands, cradling her rifle in arms, smirking in the doorway. She brushes to the left. 

“Ana!” spits McCree, scraping madly forward and toward the door. 

Hanzo follows, sees Jesse shift through the doorway. And then his heart explodes in panic. He feels the gun glaring down the back of his neck and freezes immediately in place. Caught. His legs are still heavier than before, and the stress has put a constrictor around the top of his cranium, murmuring a sharp pang through his eardrums. His senses have failed him. How foolish. Why did he not look up in that moment? 

Jack Morrison drops down in front of him from the roof of the staircase building, thronged in the vigilante uniform: gaudy jacket, ugly visor, tight pants. The deep-set frown he defaults to draws deeper as he hefts his rifle in Hanzo’s direction. The eerie lighting catches on the ruby red of his visor. 

The door slams shut. Hanzo curses under his breath. 

“You and I have other sights to see,” says Jack. His voice is pitch through loose gravel as retained in Hanzo’s memory. The only thing that hasn’t yet failed him. He jerks the gun toward the alley. 

Hanzo says nothing, mouth set in a cruel slant. Eyes piercing and rigid like a statue in a freezing storm. 

“You’re still screwed up,” mutters Seventy-Six. 

The archer immediately recoils in disgust, eyes brushing the Soldier off and gazing at the closed door. 

“Locked,” says Jack. 

Hanzo exhales through flared nostrils. “We have no time for these _games_ ,” he hisses. 

“No games. Two birds, one stone.” Jack strides forward, past Hanzo, toward the dying fire of the sunlight. 

Hanzo stares down the door for a second, breathing even with his quickened heartbeat. Gritting his teeth and shaking his head, he slowly moves to follow Seventy-Six. 

“Got the location of their mat storage from some some Talon who camped out here,” gruffs the Soldier as they walk through hot, paved supply roads. Narrowed by arching buildings and passages on either side, the road seems to cut the complex into two. 

“Where is Talon?” Hanzo says warily. 

“Dead,” answers Jack. “Strike team split up somewhere back. Only ten of them here. Captured one. That’s where McCree and Amari went.” 

“Why so obtuse, then?” rasps Hanzo, leveling his cold gaze at Morrison. 

“You got a good lay of the land looking for us,” says Jack. “And, you two are joined at the hip, frankly. Subterfuge seems to be the only thing that can split you up.”

“Baseless and asinine,” leers the archer. 

Jack Morrison shrugs. “Whatever you say.” 

“Widowmaker,” starts Hanzo. 

“You watched the tapes,” says Jack, angling his visor toward Hanzo. “You know what happened.” 

“I was unable to finish them,” says Hanzo. “Tasteless deflection aside, I need to know. I need to know why Talon had to capture her.” 

“Tasteless,” says Jack. “I wonder how much taste you’d have if I started yapping about how I had to break in your brother.” 

Hanzo halts in his tracks. 

“Hold me responsible all you want,” says Jack, stopping just ahead. He turns and looks at Hanzo. His mouth, set in a horrid frown, moves haltingly with his words. “I made mistakes. We gonna compare fuck-ups, Shimada?” 

Hanzo digs his fingernails into the palm of his hand, sighing deep. They resume their walk, albeit with Hanzo icily glowering in Jack’s direction. Through the frigid wrath striking nails throughout his nervous system, something clicks. A connection made prior, in the first moments he saw Morrison, pressing its way through the surface now. 

“How did you know about the discs? How did you know about what happened to me?” 

Jack scoffs. “McCree sent me the tapes. With a nice little ‘fuck you’ note.” 

Hanzo’s eyes widen. His breathing grows shallow. That manipulative, childish, _infuriating_ —

“Lacroix gave her to Talon.” Jack says suddenly. He has his fists balled up, his rifle slung over his shoulder. Stiff, rigid, morose. “He just handed her over. That was the real cover-up. She wasn’t kidnapped. He was deranged. Didn’t take much convincing to get him to believe they could fix her.” 

The hairs on the back of Hanzo’s neck stand on end. He feels his hair fray, just a little, and his jaw drop. He presses his palms against his temples. “You could not have the head of your strike team giving his dying wife to Talon on national news.” 

“Not with the Blackwatch attention building. It was shitty. And it didn’t mean anything, in the end. That make you feel better, Shimada?” Jack rests his hand on his hip.

Hanzo stares into the side of Jack’s visor. “She deserved better.” 

They come up to a large set of double doors set into a concrete, unmarked building. 

A pale, wheezing bark of a laugh escapes Soldier’s lips. “I agree.” 

“So what, then?” Hanzo weaves an incredulous palm through the air. “You tell the world the whole scenario took place in Beijing and Aix-en. You recover her after she has been brainwashed. A week later, Gérard is dead. You did not see that coming?” 

“Of course I did,” growls the Soldier. “Lacroix got her back on his own. It was all him, falling apart. You saw his face. That wasn’t the face of a man who understood reason. Talon had him wrapped around their finger from the beginning. I have a theory.” He tries the door, which naturally doesn’t budge. “Try the roof.” 

Hanzo kicks his climbing boots into the side of the building, then hesitates. “Theory.” 

“They wanted to assassinate Gérard all along. Poison was meant for him. Janssen new how to play her cards, though, and got Amélie as an added bonus.”

Hanzo frowns, frothing underneath his skin. Unsettling, how calmly Jack speaks of it now. “Why did Talon have to recapture her. Why did she go AWOL.” 

Morrison shrugs. “Don’t know the answer to that one.” 

“Irene said it was ‘property reacquisition.’ Did she abscond with something?” He begins his climb, a little slower than usual, the weightiness of his legs burdening him and the shadow in his chest growing tighter with the effort. 

Jack laughs again, wry and hollow. “No, the witch was more than likely talking about Widow directly. People are property to her. ‘Specially that one.” 

“They were property to you, too, once,” says Hanzo, further up now, and distant. Jack doesn’t reply, or Hanzo doesn’t hear it as he heaves himself up over the roof of the building. He quickly spots a raised section of glass fairly close in position to the entrance. 

Hanzo approaches it, shatters it with a sharp stab of the boot heel, and lowers himself down, crunching light boots against the glass shards on the concrete floor. He lands hard, too—a reckoning pangs through his knees and up his thighs. 

Bathed in shadow and only visible through outline are large stacks of wooden crates, organized into sectors by tape on the floor. Hanzo takes a brief survey before unlocking the doors and shoving them open with two hands. 

Jack nods, brushing past Hanzo. 

“Is there where the nano-webbing is ostensibly located?” asks the archer. 

The Soldier nods once more. He stops moving for a second, turns his vaguely in Hanzo’s direction. “You gonna ask?” 

Hanzo nods this time. 

The Soldier sighs. “I’ve seen too many people die because of this shit. So I’m finding it, and I’m blowing it up.” 

“Talon wants to find it to make more of you?” Hanzo asks, pointed. 

“Reaper probably thinks he can use it to get stronger,” says Jack, glancing straight up at the lights. The frown on his face seems a little lighter, as if he wants at least to smile, but the dryness of the memory furrows his brow, and he drops his lips down again. 

The building, simply laid out by rooms, has a massive array of subterranean hallways. Jack punches numbers into a keypad and a nearby vault door whirrs to life; inside is an elevator. The descent is drudging. The shoddy cube of the elevator seems to totter off-balance with the cabling as a sign of disuse. 

Hanzo folds his arms and stares at the rusted, stainless steel paneling. “Why only send ten men to the last known location of their prize?” 

“See if we were here. They got their answer. They’ll send more.”

Hanzo chews on the Soldier’s words as they descend. Truths Hanzo felt as though he knew, but still sank like stones as words into his ears. Gérard’s journey, detailed before Hanzo and allegedly inflicted by the specter’s venom, ultimately said everything. The combination of his young marriage under pressure, his new job against his old friends, and the ultimate trigger Irene Janssen pulled that started everything. And now Amélie is gone, replaced by the demonic presence that took so much from so many. 

Finally, they hit the bottom-most floor. It opens to a pavilion, further complicating things with branches of halls that stretch in various directions. 

Hanzo follows the Soldier silently through the twisting labyrinth of corridors, asking skeptically if they know where they’re going. Blinking, fluorescent lights, or sometimes nothing but pitch black, guides them on their journey into the bowels of the Labs. 

“First atomic weapon was developed here,” says Jack idly as they mouse along the walls and floors. “Then, Helix developed the pulse rifle here. Place participated in two of the world’s most violent crimes.” 

“Bathed in blood,” murmurs Hanzo. 

“A little poetic for my tastes, but you’re not wrong.” 

“What do you know about the nano-webbing?” Hanzo asks, expecting a fruitless response. 

Instead, Jack dips his head below his shoulders. Hanzo recognizes that look somewhere, somehow lost in a vaguery of recent memory. Somehow it elicits thoughts of… Genji? Hanzo knows that Jack is aware; after everything, the very least he owes the afflicted sniper is an explanation. 

“Not much,” he says finally. “Man who discovered it, his name was Bruno Richelieu. Headed SEP. Personally oversaw our experiments.” It is unspoken, really, but Hanzo senses it. _Our_ experiments. “After everyone else died, the nano-webbing disappeared. Popular theory at the time was that it had just been used up.” 

“You do not believe that.” 

“No, but that that’s neither here nor there. Point is, Pentagon discovered a similar sample, although much smaller in size.” 

“Gérard’s webbing.” 

Jack snaps his fingers. “Bingo.” 

Hanzo wonders how Jack got the information he has. He dismisses the thought as soon as it approaches—there is no limit to the sources that will cower at the sound of his voice. 

Eventually they reach another large safe door. Jack punches in another set of serials, and the safe door begins to slide open. Hanzo realizes the speed with which his heart is beating. Clearance locks, various shutters, and a series of lead bars begin to retract before them, bathing the immediate area in a clinical, white light. 

The archer swallows loudly. 

As the bare room with a singular pedestal presents itself before them, Hanzo’s breath catches in his throat. Something he’d only seen in videos, something he’d only had horrendous nightmares about. The nano-webbing: a nascent disaster on the edge of the world’s eyelids. The substance that made Jack Morrison a super soldier. The substance that made Gabriel Reyes and Amélie Lacroix demons. The substance that veritably set Overwatch off-balance merely by virtue of its own existence.

The metal cylinder sits, waiting, on the pedestal. Upright, sparkling dustily in a singular, yellow spotlight. 

Jack steps forward. “Other Talon team might show up soon. Maybe you oughta keep watch.” 

“Maybe I ought to make sure you destroy it,” sneers Hanzo. 

Jack sets a hand on the glimmering handle, and hefts it up into the light. He balances it in his other hand, and twists. 

The holding cylinder slides out to reveal the eerily familiar glass tube. Hanzo’s slack-jaw turns into a taut frown as Jack drops the metal cylinder onto the floor. 

It’s empty. 

Jack is stone-still and quiet as snowfall. 

“Did they get here first?” hisses the archer. 

“No.”

“Then what?” Hanzo throws his hands up into the air. 

“Then we don’t know where the fuck it is,” fumes Morrison. 

Hanzo curses under his breath in Japanese, resting a palm against the door frame. “A substance this powerful could not have left with no trail.” 

“That’s just it,” says Morrison, inhaling deep and exhaling shakily. “For all we know, it can. We don’t know anything about it.” 

“Funny that it is subatomically fused with you,” sighs Hanzo with contempt. 

“Funny,” repeats Jack. “Fine. Let’s see if your boyfriend did any better.” 

Fiancée, Hanzo corrects inwardly, feeling the blood draw to his face. He absently fiddles with his ring. 

Demoralized, hollow, and frustrated, Hanzo leers at the back of Soldier’s head on the stuffy tread back up to the ground floor of the warehouse. The paper trail ends here, and bitter as Hanzo is to acquiesce, Jack is correct—there is no exact understanding as to how the substance works. There isn’t any perceivable way to pinpoint where it could have gone from here. The groundless possibility infuriates Hanzo. 

Jack’s phone buzzes. He presses it to his ear, remains idle for a few seconds, and then shoves it into his pocket. “They’re here.” 

They move at a much faster pace back up toward the surface level. Hanzo keeps his eyes on the 76 emblazoned on Soldier’s back as the lights pass over it. He feels lighter still, as if increased time away from the Watchpoint really is the answer. He frowns with the obvious caveat; it will return when he does. 

“They need to get the prisoner out safe. We’re the distraction. How fast can you move?” barks Soldier. 

“You are looking at it,” mumbles Hanzo, edging on out-of-breath. 

“Find a spot and start watching.” Jack tosses Hanzo an earpiece. “I’ll get things nice and loud.” 

The sound of a vehicle engine greets them at warehouse doors. Jack assumes a low stance, flicking the safety off his pulse rifle. Uniform footsteps follow the sound of car doors slamming, echoed across the sheer of of the concrete around them. They gather. 

After a pause, the Soldier nods. 

Hanzo shoulders the door open with an arrow nocked and springs it through the skull of the first Talon soldier he spots. He swings back into cover, loading another arrow, and counts a total of three remaining. 

Jack dashes superhuman through the open door. Three short bursts of pulse fire later, a rusty “clear,” can be heard through the unsettled dust. 

Jack produces a set of keys out of the pockets of a dead soldier, and climbs into the jet black Jeep. He nods at Hanzo, then speeds off loudly, instantly attracting a slough of gunfire. 

Hanzo climbs back up to the top of the storage building. The sun has all but officially set—fading ribbons of orange pulse through an otherwise indigo skyline. With no little attention paid to the extra effort it now costs him, Hanzo fires a few Sonar Arrows into stray corners of the complex. 

One of them pings immediately. Hanzo stares in its direction, nocking a Scatter Arrow. 

“Contact,” burbles Jack from the earpiece just before a spatter of gunfire sounds from behind Hanzo. He doesn’t turn to face it. 

Warmth reaches his throat when he hears Jesse’s voice over the radio. “Subject outside the compound walls, and I’m leavin’ him with Amari up the road. I’ll double back after a spell.” 

“Acknowledged,” says Hanzo, low. 

He aims in the general vicinity of the staircase-shaped building, watching for errant shadows or flashes of helmet lights. His Sonar Arrow pings once more, catching his heart in his throat, but he still sees nothing. 

“Shimada! Cover!” roars Soldier. Hanzo wheels to see him sprinting across a wide supply tarmac in the distance, tailed quietly by a sly pair of Talon agents. The Jeep, a smoldering wreck set into the brick of a lab building, groans as its engine fails. 

Hanzo sets his Scatter Arrow down, zeroing in on the Talon soldiers. 

“Left,” rasps Hanzo. Soldier hangs low and scrapes sharp to the left, causing his tail to emerge from the shadows for a split second. 

He lets the arrow fly, singing. Any other day prior to a month ago, he would’ve already stopped looking. This time, he watched. Biting his lip, he relaxed as it sunk into the soldier’s neck, crumpling him on the spot. 

The archer breathes out, steady. 

A circuit box behind him explodes. He dives below the lip of the roofing, suddenly assailed by bullets. 

“Pinned,” he says into the microphone.

Ana comes through first. “I had a tail. Harris signaled them in some way.” A quick pause with a heavy breath. “They diverged. I am trying to understand what he said to them.” 

Hanzo frowns, thoroughly disoriented. 

“Just get him safe,” barks Jack. 

“But not comfortable,” adds Jesse with a hint of fire. He fades momentarily, then thunders back in with a soft grunt. “I got you, darlin’.” 

After a short breath, six shots ring out from below Hanzo. Each is impossibly close to the last in time, with not even a millisecond to spare. Afterwards, oppressive silence mars the air. He peeks up over the concrete lip to see Jesse wiping his left eye and emptying Peacekeeper out onto the asphalt. He looks up, gives Hanzo a lopsided grin, and tilts his hat. Hanzo can’t fight off a plaintive smile, shaking his head. 

The second Sonar Arrow pings again. Hanzo pulls the drawstring tight, correcting for wind, peering at the alley across the tarmac. 

Three soldiers suddenly sprawl from the shadows, clambering onto the road. They fire instantly at Jesse, who has blurred into cover. 

Hanzo looses the Scatter Arrow at their feet. Errant shards of arrow tip recoil off the ground and up into their throats. Two of them choke and flail to the ground. The third continues to run, now aiming at Hanzo. The archer flattens himself once again, bullets passing overhead. 

“Hovercraft,” Jack says nonchalantly over the radio. Hanzo can hear it, distantly—a Talon ship. Quiet, stealthy black against the darkening sky. 

Jesse disposes of the third Talon agent. 

“Can’t have you up there with that thing around,” barks Jesse. 

“Hush,” says Hanzo, rolling his eyes. He clambers down the side of the building as quickly as possible. 

“Ana, what’s your twenty?” demands Jack. 

“We are at B. They’ll find it soon. Subject is alive, not well,” says Amari. “I’m doing everything I can to keep him awake.” 

“Try to keep moving. Might have Talon on your back.” 

“Who do you think you’re talking to?” says Ana before cutting out. 

More bullets crack into the concrete in front of them. Hanzo and Jesse dash madly in unison around the back of the supply warehouse as the hovercraft sinks into position just above the Labs. 

“Keep low,” says Jack. Helix Rockets emerge from a scrawny alleyway across the property. They graze just above the hovercraft. 

“Shit, Jack!” says Jesse. 

“Keep your mouth shut and deal with the boots on the ground!” Jack is roaring into the microphone. 

“Wanna try that thing?” Jesse waggles his eyebrows at Hanzo. 

“Yes.” Hanzo makes a grabbing motion with one hand. 

Jesse hands him a flashbang, then rips a portion of cloth off the sleeve of his shirt with his metal hand, handing that over, too. 

Two enemy agents sprint around the darker side of the building ahead. Jesse shoots them down. 

Hanzo ties the flashbang to an arrow, hefting it up into Storm Bow. It’s heavy, but nothing the sniper cannot accommodate. “Tell me when.” 

“Roger,” says the gunslinger around a smile. Hanzo slips his fingers across the gunslinger’s chestplate as he jogs in the direction of the downed Talon soldiers. 

The hovercraft has already begun firing its side canons, debasing chunks of buildings and creating large holes in the supply road. It topples a communications tower with the guns mounted at its helm. 

Police arrive on the scene, too. Hanzo passes through an alley to get a wide view of the tarmac, where the ideal target is being held—a squadron of Talon soldiers. 

“In position,” comes McCree over the earpiece. 

“Where?” says Hanzo, angling himself so that the squadron is on his three o’clock. 

“Where d’you think?” laughs the gunslinger. 

Hanzo rolls his eyes. Of course. He aims the flashbang arrow dead at the squadron from their nine o’clock to compensate for Jesse’s position—straight ahead. High Noon. 

“Fire!” Jesse says. 

Hanzo complies. 

Jesse emerges from behind a disemboweled storage container at the last second, turning the Talon soldiers' attention to him. Hanzo can see the crimson gleam of his left eye as the arrow sinks into the ground at the soldiers’ feet. 

A flash of white, obscuring the soldiers. When it subsides, they have already fallen to the ground. 

“Mother of fuck,” breathes Jesse from the earpiece. He can be seen once more emptying Peacekeeper onto the ground. “Flash Arrow.” 

The Helix Rockets finally connect with the hovercraft, spiraling it into the edge of the staircase building. The resounding crash is so loud, Hanzo ducks low and covers his ears. 

Jesse briefly grabs at Hanzo’s one sleeve and then dashes behind the building: the hovercraft is now facing them. Hanzo follows, swinging around the corner just in time as a huge round sinks itself into the concrete behind him. A splash of ruin and dirt rains down on the two of them as they brace themselves against the wall. 

“Out,” says Jack. “Rendezvous at the entrance. We can’t keep Ana waiting.”

Jesse frowns. “Hopefully that hovercraft can’t fly sustained any more.” 

“It is up to chance,” says Hanzo, passing Jesse and moving for the entrance. It waits all the way down the supply road and through the brick structures. The duo slip between cover as the hovercraft stays just barely balanced next to the ruined staircase. It angles forward as they put their backs to it. 

They slip past Talon targets, staying low to the ground, slow and steady and using the shadows to the best of their ability. 

“Hold,” whispers Hanzo. 

The hovercraft passes overhead, forcing Jesse and Hanzo flat against the wall. It lingers, sputtering, and loses altitude. 

“Hang on.” Jesse ducks into the building behind which they hide through a shattered window. Inside, Hanzo can see him disappear up a rickety, wooden staircase to the second floor. The silence, other than the sputtering whirr of the hovercraft, disorients Hanzo. He cannot hear the footsteps of potential approaching soldiers. He shoots his last Sonar Arrow at the electrical box on top of a neighboring structure. It pings in response to the hovercraft, but remains silent otherwise. 

From the awkward angle at which Hanzo is forced to crouch under the oppression of the hovercraft, he can see the flash of red on the roof above. Hanzo’s jaw slackens considerably as the gunslinger underhand tosses a flashbang onto the hovercraft, gainint the pilot’s attention with the noise. 

The hovercraft, struggling still to stay afloat, begins to orient itself toward Jesse. 

“Might wanna start runnin’, sweetheart.” 

As the cockpit swings into view, Jesse empties the last of Peacekeeper’s bullets directly into the glass, shattering it on the third shot and splattering the other side with crimson. 

The hovercraft instantly careens to one side, crashing into the dirt and sending dust flying at Hanzo in a wave. He dashes forward as fast as his exhaustion permits, and hears the collapse of the hovercraft decimate the building behind him. 

Jesse drops down beside Hanzo as they run along the supply road toward the entrance gate. Hanzo cannot help but stare the gunslinger down in admiration, and also a little chagrin; the risk was hardly worth the reward. 

Jack waves his hands casually up ahead, then begins down the road outside the Laboratories proper. The enemy seems to be behind them. 

Hanzo checks once more for enemy presence, and then follows Jesse to the main gate. 

The hovercraft finally hits the ground, hard, and creates a huge clot of dust that springs high up into the night air. Police cruisers speed up the road toward it, followed by a SWAT van. Hanzo frowns—something about the battle nags at him. Something he feels should be obvious, but seems to be lying under a layer of decay. Irene’s impeccable sense of timing, adjustment, and strategy have Hanzo overthinking the wrong aspects and overthinking the right ones. He slows in his movements. Before long, he realizes he has stopped moving altogether. 

Jesse stops and waits for Hanzo to catch up on the apex of a short hill. “Missed you,” he says. 

Hanzo smiles for a heartbeat, before frowning deep and pinching McCree’s neck, as small and hard as possible. 

“Yeoww!” shrieks the cowboy, slapping at his neck. He curses quietly, then looks at Hanzo like a sheep. “Jack told ya.” 

The archer scowls in response, making sure to shoulder-bash him as he passes by. 

***  
It is a fairly short walk to the fallback point—a dilapidated shack in the outset of the curved, hilly forested area beyond the labs—but it submerges the couple in darkness. The moon rises high above, but outside the reach of the tall trees. Hanzo curls his lip and coldly glares through his lack of visibility. As they come up on the cabin. Hanzo leers, tensing as his eyes outline a solitary figure resting against the chipped and flaky façade. 

“About time,” says the figure. 

Hanzo sighs. Ana Amari’s voice is smoother in person. 

“They in there?” Jesse asks. 

Amari nods. “The webbing is gone. Jack is furious.” 

“Why is he so angry _now_? Why did he not take care of this years ago?” asks Hanzo, who braces himself momentarily on an outstretched tree branch. His stamina is already so low—the extent of the damage done continues to frustrate and perplex the sniper. 

Ana shrugs, face obscured in the darkness. Jesse lights a cigarillo, illuminating the old woman’s face for a second. Mouth closed, staring off past Jesse and Hanzo into the woods with a pensive stare. Keeping watch. Her aged face is drawn, experienced, and yet gentle despite the complication of the eyepatch. Largely neutral, her eyes reflect a hesitant absence. Her tattoo offsets her somber glare. Hanzo nearly looks away when she makes piercing eye contact, staring deep into him. 

Despite feeling somehow caught in a trap, Hanzo breathes in relief. Somewhere, he and the old woman understand each other. The layer of sincerity over killer precision is endlessly charming to the archer, and it is scrawled within the battle-hardened wrinkles etched onto her graceful features. 

Finally, she speaks up. “Jack left it in obscurity in purpose. Chasing it down would only draw attention to it. My bet is that Talon gained interest in it after looking into the historical significance of your little move,” she brandishes her fingers in the air dismissively.

“Must you speak as if you are somehow above-it-all? You cannot even stay out of retirement,” leers Hanzo. Jesse balks at him, which he feels on his neck, but ignores. 

“Fair enough,” says Ana. “Know this: Jack will do whatever it takes to make sure that nano-webbing gets erased.” 

“And you?” asks the archer. 

“What else?” she lifts at the end, laughing a little. “I’ll watch.” 

Jack throws the shack door open. “Stop wasting time.” 

Ana moves slow, but follows him through the opening into the dimly lit, singular room. Inside, a solitary yellow light bounces odd shadows off the walls and doesn’t penetrate the darkness outside at all, giving the room a two-dimensional look that messes with Hanzo’s eyes. 

The room is devoid of furniture, save a small table. On the slab of what appears to be particle board is a portable holodisc player, canned food, and various other survival trinkets. Hanzo briefly eyes a compass, aged and cracked, colored in the original Overwatch scheme. 

Hanzo brings himself to look at the emaciated subject—an older, graying man slumped in a rocking chair in the center of the room. Soldier takes a place standing next to him. 

“Shimada, meet Harris Belfast of Talon.” 

The man wheezes. He looks through red-ringed eyes at Hanzo, smiling before dropping his gaze to his khaki lap. “Pleasure,” he rattles in sharp breaths. 

Hanzo tilts his head. The old man is British. “He is sick,” says the archer after a pause. 

“Cancer,” wheezes Harris. 

Hanzo blinks through sudden connection. A ring of familiarity bounces off Harris’ name. Where has he heard it? 

“You gonna talk now?” asks Jesse. 

“Y-your colleague more than likely informed you,” says Harris, slowly. He stumbles over every syllable. “I have given the p-proper signal to my own allies. I needn’t say anything to you.” 

“He’s deranged,” says Jack. 

“I am _not_. I know who you are. You’re from MI6!” says Harris, pointing a trembling finger in Jack’s direction. 

Hanzo shoots a look of utter disbelief in Jesse’s direction, who aimlessly shrugs back. 

“Of course, what with all the nonsense going on,” Harris makes an unpleasant face, pulling back his upper teeth and rolling his eyes, “y-you know, I shouldn’t have to a-answer to anyone. I’m a dead man.” 

“Harris,” says Hanzo distantly. A nauseating flood of memory flits into Hanzo’s mind. Thinking of the holodiscs triggers a hyper-awareness of Hanzo’s existing fatigue, slowing his words. “They referenced a Harris on the discs.” 

“Yep,” says Jack. “This is the guy that turned Amélie Lacroix into Widowmaker.” 

Bile retches in Hanzo’s gut. “You?” 

“I worked with what I had,” smirks Harris, leaning back and exhaling slow and painful. “Do we have lemonade?” 

“Do you know where it is, Harris?” Jesse says, surprisingly gentle. “The webbin’.” 

“Mathilda,” says Harris, pointing at Ana. “Fetch me a lemonade.” 

“He has dementia,” says Hanzo. “We will not get anything out of him.” 

“He’s sharper than he’s puttin’ out,” murmurs Jesse. 

Hanzo scoffs. “He is clearly not lucid enough to give any solid answers.” 

“I knew him,” says Harris, looking toward Jack. “Bruno. I know him. He was here a little over an hour ago.” 

Jack unfolds his arms, scowls underneath his visor, and approaches Harris. He bends down, visor pressing into the old man’s personal space. Jack makes as if he’s grasping at Harris’ hand—then takes a single finger and jerks it back all the way until it rests against the back of his palm. 

Harris doesn’t react at first, then a slow frown builds into an aghast grimace, then finally the hysterical scream. Hanzo winces at how sharp it sounds; Harris’ vocal cords remain strong in his infirmity. 

Jesse swats at Jack’s hand. “Hands off! You brought me here, we do this _my_ way.” 

Jack scoffs, but releases his grip on Harris’ broken finger, stepping away and leaving the old man huffing and writhing into the folds of his wheelchair. 

Harris stacks a slow chuckle against his slackened lips. “You-you all are f-fools. Y-you have no clue, eh?” 

Hanzo rests a hand on Jesse’s shoulder. “The battle…” 

Jesse’s metal hand rests over Hanzo’s. “I know. They didn’t send their best players after us. I’m personally a little insulted.” 

Harris frowns and snaps his fingers at Ana. “Mathilda? Didn’t you hear me?” 

Ana smirks. “Do I look like a Mathilda, Harris? Honestly.” 

Jack stomps his foot. “I’m sick of waiting. McCree, either do your job or leave it to me.” 

Jesse raises an eyebrow at Jack. “Last I checked, you ain’t the boss of me any more.” 

Ana snorts. “Was he ever?” 

Nevertheless, the gunslinger relents, brushing his nose and kneeling down in front of Harris. “You were sayin’, about Bruno?” 

Harris’ eyes twinkled in the dim light. A nascent smile began to form on his crusted lips. “I knew it would happen. He was here an hour ago, s-speaking to h-how the quantum filaments could slip through space time, and they came out the other side in a different form. Quantum rehabilitation. Or, maybe quantum adaptation. Quantum decay?” 

Jack exhales loudly. “How much longer are we gonna keep talking drivel, cowboy?” 

Hanzo rests a thumb against his chin, watching his lover’s process silently. 

Jesse sighs at the Soldier, turning to regard at the staunch, older man. “He wants to help. This’ the only way he knows how.” He turns back to Harris. “Quantum filaments the same thing as nano-webbin’?” 

Harris rolls his eyes. “Americans have to have their own special n-nomenclature, don’t they? Doesn’t matter what it is, so long as it feeds on enough death. Am I n-not being heard? L-lemonade!” He throttles his voice, sending thin ropes of spittle out onto his plain white button-up. 

“No lemonade, old man,” says Jesse. “Sorry. Man’s gotta have rules, you know.” He gives a blame-shifting shrug. 

Harris’ lips begin to tremble. “I’m thirsty.”

“Keep goin’. What d’you mean by your death comment, old man? You’re making about as much sense as legs on a tree.” He lights a cigarillo, blowing the smoke up, faintly obscuring the low yellow of the bare light bulb. 

“It slips through, after all the k-killings ‘ve been made, you k-know? It feeds on it. The death. And Bruno said, y-you know, when he w-was here, it ate him up. The big black cloud, at Groundstahl one second and Switzerland the n-next. Seen travelling through the mirrors. China Begay saw it. Ha ha. Quantum decay.” Harris tilts his head back, letting the gold light fall on his thin, mottled neck. He wheezes once. “Do we have pop? I’d like a lemonade.” 

Jesse leans forward. To Hanzo’s surprise, so does Jack. “Who? Who did the nano-webbin’ eat up?” 

“I swear I t-told Janssen the same thing.” He coughs, loud and wet. “She was all in a tizzy. Don’t know why y-y-you want me to repeat myself.” 

Jesse rests a hand on Harris’ knee. He looks him in the eye, chewing on the cigarillo. He blows a plume of smoke out the side of his mouth, angles his hips in what looks like to Hanzo a weird fashion. Peacekeeper catches, a shimmering claw, in the amber lighting. “Who?” he stresses. 

“W-who else? R-Reyes. Wrapped him up and c-carried him off. I-I’ll bet you the quantum filaments H-Helix stole p-performed similarly. I-it couldn’t g-get the body it wanted, though. M-my precious Amé made sure of it. So it did the next b-best thing, you know?” 

Hanzo’s breath suddenly grows shallow. A connection has been made. A synapse has fired. The truth levels in front of his bared eyes, too bright to see still. He thinks, just grasp it. Just _take_ it. The hands of his mind grasp. 

Jesse pats Harris on the knee. “Understood. Much obliged, old man.” 

Jack is night silent and stone still. Ana looks him over, mouth in a watchful slant. 

McCree stands. “Makes sense.” 

“What?” Hanzo asks, urgent, almost pleading. Jesse is one step ahead. As always. 

“Didn’t send their best players after us.” He breathes in the cigarillo smoke. After the short exhale, he says, “slowed us down. Coulda been on our way back already. They split the strike team up. Their best players are probably almost there.” 

Hanzo shudders, an ice spike driven through the core of his heart. His spine feels as though it is about to bend inwards. A distraction. Another double-blind. This time across a hundred miles. He fell for it. _Again._

“They are at the Watchpoint,” Hanzo says, deathly quiet and shaky with fury. 

Jesse stretches his hands up toward the ceiling. “That ain’t all.” Morose, grim, unheeding and factual. The least warm the cowboy can get—when he realizes he’s been played. 

A smile creaks up on the edges of Hanzo’s lips. Of course. Of course after everything, Hanzo is the stupid one. The fool. Who can’t make the obvious connections under his nose. The black cloud. Seen in mirrors. Slipping through quantum physics like sand through Hanzo’s fingers. Of course. 

Jack walks toward the back door. “I can see this was a huge waste of time.” 

“No,” Hanzo breathes. 

The Soldier levels a fist against the wall, pressing inward. The wood cracks around his enclosed knuckles. “I didn’t come here to hear about Gabe. I came here for the nano-webbing.” 

The black cloud, descending upon the corpse. 

McCree whistles. “You sure have lost yer edge, Jack.” 

The black cloud, feeding off death. 

Ana slumps her shoulders. “We are going to have to go back, aren’t we?” 

The black cloud, dripping low to the ground with smoking venom and invading Hanzo’s innermost mentalities. The black cloud, shooting across the space above, taunting, leveling a shotgun at his lover’s head. 

Of course they are the same. 

Jack spits. “Fuck.” 

“There is a reason the Gérard at the Watchpoint looks like Reaper,” says Hanzo, still just above a whisper. 

Harris coughs up a fountain of blood, dousing his white shirt with red and pooling in his lap. He trails into his words: “without a body, it t-tried to take his shape, and could never get it quite right… a dead r-ringer.” 

“He’s the nano-webbing,” says Jesse with a shuddering breath. “Gérard.” 

A bitter smile creases the folds of Hanzo’s heart. Irony lost in a sea of utter frustration, the archer realizes he is clenching his fist so tight that he’s drawn blood with his fingernails. 

The room stands quiet. 

“Ah,” says Harris suddenly, pulling on his collar to reveal a thin, metal collar. “Here is the lemonade.” He pulls on the collar. 

Hanzo is blinded. He sees Jack rush forward before blood splatters in his eyes, followed by an unending torrent of fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those reading as I update--I'm sorry for the tardiness. In all reality, the narrative should have been finished by now. I'm a senior in college, and I'm an English major, and along with DG, I have written a total of 75 pages of cumulative material in the last month. Also, I work 40 hours a week and commute. So, it's a lot, and I'm sorry about the irregular schedule. On that note, I'm aware this chapter ended in a very jarring fashion. My current plan, now that I'm in a bit of a lull before finals, is to upload Chapter 13 in the next couple of days, as these chapters were conceived together. 
> 
> If you are curious as to what Harris is talking about, don't worry. I hope I made the causality about Gerard clear enough without fully detailing that scenario--that was one of the things that took the longest, basically me second-guessing myself. A full detail of the events he's referencing are going to take place in a followup fic I am currently outlining. It does not follow McCree or Hanzo, but it takes place in this same world, and who knows? I'm a slut for cameos. 
> 
> I'm certainly not the loudest voice in the McHanzo fandom, but I do want to call attention to my favorite McHanzo artist, [dilfosaur](http://dilfosaur.tumblr.com). She has just finalized a McHanzo sketch-zine that has sold out on pre-orders, but will be resurfacing in May. I've included a link to her blog. Keep her in your mind if you're thinking of merch next month, and give her blog a flip-through. She is absolutely amazing.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: As you can imagine, there is heavy violence in this chapter.
> 
> I am in a fugue state as I publish this. Forgive me for any heinous error, for sleep is a distant memory.

Under a canopy of night, they move. Everything is numb. Sounds are muffled, voices sound distant, and even the sense of touch has been weakened—the metal fingers that occasionally brush against Hanzo’s feel as if the flesh they touch is just a layer molded over his real skin. 

The car Jesse and Hanzo took here rests patiently on the side of the road. Dusted with the Harris’ gore, Jack lumbers ahead of Hanzo. Street lamps dot the cold, unkempt road, and catch on all the blood in an ethereal fashion—this effect, too, is numbed. 

Jesse, in a show of deference unfamiliar to Hanzo, tosses the keys to Jack. 

Oddly enough, Hanzo cannot stop thinking about his first kill. The rival clan from Kobe had the keen idea to lay siege to a Shimada production factory. In a tour de force, Hanzo with three other clanmembers immediately beckoned their dragons. Hanzo remembers watching as the ghostly blue teeth of his first dragon tore into their flesh, through bone as if it were chalk powder. How their jaws collapsed around their heads, caving their skulls in—quite the opposite of what he’d just seen. He knows he is in shock, and as he struggles to achieve the same reflexive reality as his compatriots, but he feels grounded, _nailed_ in place by the haunting finale of Harris’ interrogation. 

Behind them the shack lies, walls painted with the detonated remains of Harris’ head. Whether Talon forced it upon him, or Harris put the explosive collar on his own neck, flits in and out of importance for Hanzo. Either way, the cancerous, old, literal mad scientist is dead. What a play—retaining agency in taking his own life. Hanzo almost wants to smirk at the thought; Harris deserved much worse. 

The call from Torbjörn came almost immediately after the grotesque fireworks show. His drones picked up Talon forces moving in the woods, and three of them had been detonated. Torbjörn sounded calm, assured Hanzo that Vandergild and the others were ready to take care of things during the foursome’s drive back to the Watchpoint (the Chief Engineer did a poor job masking his excitement when he learned that Ana and Jack were accompanying them). Nevertheless, an unadulterated matrix of shame has set itself upon Hanzo’s faculties. 

Hanzo understands quickly why Jesse handed the keys over. Jack behind the wheel of a vehicle is a force to be reckoned with. Even though he looked at McCree with an inquisitive frown when he set hands upon the bent steering wheel, he seems able to occupy even the densest of traffic while retaining the speed of their urgency. He bobs, weaves, tilts in and out of lanes as if laws don’t exist. 

They are mostly silent. Ana retains her stoic façade in the front seat while Jesse and Hanzo sit in the back. Gaunt, toneless expression masks their faces—Hanzo relents he is more likely visibly distraught than the others. This is confirmed when Jesse ungloves his hand and snakes it over Hanzo’s, squeezing his fingers tight. 

Hanzo looks up—their rings are touching. Dazed, exhausted, enfeebled. 

“Sleep,” says Jesse, low and soft. 

Hanzo leans against Ana’s headrest, and shakes his head. 

“What, you’d rather draw yer hat down on the battlefield?” he asks. 

Jack grunts. “Better get some rest while you can. All of you.” 

“What’s the plan?” asks Ana. 

“March right in. Fighting will have already started. Shimada’s the defensive coordinator. Defer to him after that.” Jack’s visor flashes briefly in the rearview mirror. 

“I’ll take up a roost,” Amari murmurs. “Try to find… her.” She leans back. “Irene completely switched the board out from under us.”

Morrison grunts in agreement. “On the fly. Harris must have figured it out when he saw the empty cylinder.”

“He was in on the distraction,” says Amari. 

“He is dead. We found the truth,” says Hanzo, slowly. Slurred. Somehow he is relieved in a way. The specter is not a ghost. He mentally notes a reminder for the next phone call with Genji. Further, it is not Gérard, but a being that begs the question: what _is_ the nano-webbing, really? Sentient? Or a viral attempt to copy sentience? The Reaper: drifting through battlefields, fusing and molding to corpses before vanishing back to its container. The staff at Grand Mesa, hearing voices, slowly churning their minds out into it. Did it feed on their sanity as well? Did it capitalize on Gérard’s grief and make him the manic figure that triggered her transformation? 

“Jack,” says Jesse. He sounds strained. “Did you know the nano-webbin’ could do that?” 

Morrison sighs, flexing his hands against the steering wheel. The highway is empty now, and while he is going well over a hundred miles an hour, to Hanzo it feels like a crawl. 

“No,” he says finally. “I just… happened to survive Zürich. I had no idea how _he_ got out of it. Until now. I knew it could be—whatever.”

“Sub-atomically integrated into physical material,” says Ana gingerly. “Harris convinced Gérard to use the webbing and boost Amélie’s immunity… but instead, it fused with the venom.” 

Jesse continues in a grim, low voice. “Turned her whole body blue.” 

Ana’s shoulders slump. She leans on her elbows. “Easy to brainwash someone mad with pain. Do you think that means…” 

“Yup,” says Jack in a half-grunt, exhaling strong. “It’s like we thought. Reyes wants to fuse it—Gérard, with himself.”

“What do you want to do, Jack?” Ana says. There is a slight waver to her voice. 

Morrison grips the bent steering wheel tighter. “I want to fill him however many bullets it’ll take to bring him down forever.”

Ana clicks her tongue. “I want to give him a funeral.” 

Jesse’s grip tightens what feels like ten fold on Hanzo’s hand. He glances at their overlapping fingers, rings occasionally flashing with splendor in the light of the occasional passing car. Warm and honest, a comfort Hanzo suddenly finds himself desperate for. And his fiancee’s eyes have suddenly filled with such anguish. 

He unbuckles his seatbelt and leans across the backseat, resting his head against Jesse’s lap. The gunslinger responds by weaving his fingers through Hanzo’s hair, stroking his temple with his thumb. 

Hanzo’s consciousness fades almost instantly. 

***

The fireflies greet him following flashes of grainy, cold memory. Genji jumps methodically from one damp stone to another, the pale green light pulsing around his tiny head. 

Hanzo looks at his own hands—doughy and stubby. His face: smooth, a little chubby, drawn with the irresistible smile of childhood. The night is warm, damp, and heavy. 

The neon of Genji’s visor bleaches the background of the deep forest. 

Hanzo watches it with childlike fascination as it flits between thick stumps of wood, brightening the visage of his brother’s animated face in quick flashes. The river courses between the brothers, mirroring those quick, bright seconds into the star-spattered sky. It smells like young moss, soaked flora, swamp water… 

A black silhouette sits up from just under the surface of the coursing water, as if they’d been there all along, waiting to emerge. 

Genji’s visor stills, and so does the small sparrow of his baby brother. 

Hanzo looks down at his hands again. They are ancient, rotten, gnarled, his fingers twist and bend like the trees around him. He panics as he grows, and then shrinks, spine doubling forward and organs disengaging from their systems. 

The shadow churns, seems to bore into Hanzo’s withering face. 

“Failure,” it says in a solitary, confined whisper. Its voice echoes in Hanzo’s head as an invasive thought, rather than something that crawls through his ears. 

It has Genji’s voice. Hanzo dissolves, ash. 

***

“Hop-to, people, we have a tail,” comes the ardent voice of Jack. Hanzo slowly reels in to the slight swaying of the car as it breezes just above the road. Having fallen asleep with his back at an unnatural angle, a stab of soreness is the first thing he feels. 

He sits up, strains to look in the darkness through the rearview mirror. Indeed; a pair of solitary headlights presents urgently behind them, not passing, just trailing. 

Jesse whistles tiredly. “I’m just about outta bullets.”

“I have a Scatter arrow and three standards,” murmurs Hanzo groggily. 

Ana smirks. “I’m full.” 

While Jesse’s hair is matted and he’s elbowed a shine of spittle off his chin, Hanzo cannot tell if Ana ever actually slept. She remains as composed as she was when he fell asleep. 

Jack barks a short laugh. “You didn’t see much action back there.” 

Ana whispers a short chuckle. “If I had, it wouldn’t have taken as long. Maybe I should have had you babysit the old man.” 

“Grenade,” says Hanzo, making a grabbing motion in McCree’s general direction. 

“Flash arrow?” McCree says, a smile growing under his unkempt facial hair. 

“I need an in,” mutters Hanzo. 

The car behind them makes as if to pass, but swerves back behind theirs.  
Ana unbuckles her seatbelt. “No need. Jack, roll down your window. Get them to pass us.” She leans forward, rifling through a satchel at her feet. 

Jesse sits straight up suddenly. “There’s two more.” 

Hanzo busies himself adhering the flashbang to the end of his arrow. 

“Where are we?” barks McCree. The answer is clear almost immediately—Hanzo recognizes the overpass that, a month ago, contained a police blockade against a handful of guinea pig Deadlock members. 

“They’re trying to slow us down.” Jack lets off the gas, shifts into neutral, and nearly slams against their tail. It dodges out into the lane over at the last second. 

Hanzo grits his teeth against the haunting, melodic echo of his dream. The grogginess weighs heavy on his eyes as he glances at the tail’s position. McCree is correct; two more cars appears where the first had been. 

“Gonna get ahead,” says Jack. “When are they gonna make a move?” 

“Let them pass,” says Amari. She hefts a small pistol in her hands. It has a wide barrel, and she’s loading what appear to be tiny syringes into it. “A woman’s work is never done,” she murmurs to herself, pulling the hammer into place. She says something else in Arabic before swinging the barrel over in Jack’s direction.

Jack leans back, pressing his head against the headrest. His arms grip the steering wheel straight out in front of him. He lets off the gas and rolls down his window. 

“They’re aiming to do the same thing,” says Jack, strained. 

“Mm,” Ana replies. “But I’m better at it.” 

The vehicles are now parallel. The Talon car rolls down its window, brandishing the black barrel of the gun, shining against the moon like the eye of a beast—

Amari fires first as Jack swerves to avoid the gunfire. The other driver doesn’t even get a chance to shoot.

The driver of the Talon car, presumably with a syringe in his neck, swerves off the road, buckling into a tree and flipping into nothingness. 

Hanzo looks across to see Jesse grinning huge. “Still got it, Ana,” he sighs. 

Ana scoffs. “Of course. You forget who taught you to shoot.” 

Jack grunts. “That was too risky.” 

“Who are you to judge? You died in an explosion,” Ana counters. 

The other car has made their move. The back window cracks, and Jack’s side mirror shatters. 

Hanzo looks to Jesse. The same grin from before is plastered over his face. “We about to do this again, in the same spot?” 

“Gaining speed,” says Jack, punctuated by the sound of his foot slamming into the gas pedal. 

Jesse grabs Hanzo by the knees as he throws his door open. He does not have the same strength as last time, so he grabs McCree by the serape and forces him further up onto his torso, using him as a counterweight. 

He leans. Angling the bow perfectly out into the gust, hair brushing briefly against the blurred asphalt, he fires. 

Jesse grabs his hand and vaults him back into the car as their pursuers weave to avoid the flashbang. They fail, their windshield shattering. The driver has taken the full extent of the grenade, and tracks off the side of the road, disappearing into the underbrush. 

“Not half bad, Shimada,” says Jack. 

“Was that a _compliment?_ ” Ana says, dramatically aghast. 

The Talon car dodges to the left and begins to speed up on them. 

“They won’t fall for it again,” shouts Jack. 

“I got this one,” says McCree. He checks his bullets—Hanzo counts three. 

He braces Jack’s headrest, leaning upward into the ceiling. He grabs the roof with his metal hand and pushes, ripping a panel off its own welding and peeling it back like a sheet of paper. 

“That is handy,” Ana comments, laughing a little at her own joke. 

“Does he have to be so showy?” mutters Jack. 

Hanzo leans forward as McCree passes his hat to the seat and fully stands up. The archer whispers in Jack’s ear. “And what, pray tell, is the utilitarian purpose of the massive numerals on your incredibly loud jacket?” 

Two snaps from Peacekeeper rip through the air, and the final car swerves, dips, and smashes into the road, halting in its place. 

Jesse slumps back down, exhaling loud and sharp. 

“You have improved,” says Ana. 

“Why, thank you much, ma’am.” McCree puts his hat back on and tilts it subtly in her direction. Then, after an awkward clearing of the throat: “’m out, though.” 

“Where am I going?” Jack says.

“Take the exit,” says McCree. The car rumbles and vibrates unnaturally. 

“Shit.” Jack messes with the gear shift. “Must’ve hit us in a bad spot.” 

The road begins to climb. A lump forms in Hanzo’s throat as the mesa comes into view under the low-hanging moon. Gunfire can be heard from a distance. It has begun. 

The car trembles once more, and a loud _pop_ vomits from the hoverpad, lurching it hard to the left. 

Hanzo’s phone rings. It’s Torbjörn. 

“Where are ye?” shouts the engineer. Shouting and scrambling can be heard, muffled, in the distance. 

“Ten minutes,” rasps Hanzo. “Get non-combatants to the medbay.” 

“Shimada,” Torbjörn’s voice grows low, urgent. “She’s here. Murray is facing her down by herself on high ground. Get te her ASAP.” 

“Acknowledged.” Hanzo hangs up. A shrill, biting shriek of panic surges through Hanzo’s body. He inhales deep, slow, to try and eliminate the racing of his heart. He cannot lose another. “Torbjörn asks us to take the supply gate.” It takes all he has to not sound shaky. 

He knows that Jesse knows. The gunslinger scoots closer to him on the seat. 

The car’s back bumper slams against the dirt road. 

“We’re losing hover,” grits Jack. He goes faster, the bumper ever so often dragging into the dirt, stirring it up into a whipped cloud of frenzy behind them. 

The moment just before the Watchpoint swings into view, Hanzo’s world stills. He takes in the sight of the wide, sweeping vista. The smell of hot earth and baking pine coalesces as a pang in his chest. 

Hanzo reels—he actually _missed_ this place. 

***

The shrill blare of the air raid sirens can be heard just before they come up on the orange supply gate. The turrets are firing off into the distance toward the front end of the compound, indicating Talon’s full-force strategy—they will attempt to break through the front gate, aiming for wherever Gérard is set to appear. The time is 10:35 PM. Hanzo’s team has forty-eight minutes to drive Talon off the Watchpoint. 

“They’ll be flankin’ soon,” says McCree. 

The car dips and scrapes into the asphalt as they rumble to a halt just past the supply gate. While the Watchpoint isn’t especially big—perhaps a few acres large—the gunfire and turret blasts sound distant, muffled by the clustered formation of the buildings. The air is hot, heavy, and smells of gunpowder and blood. Every fiber of his heartstrings pulls him toward Murray’s location, but upon a cursory check of his quiver, he shudders with anxiety. The lack of preparation, the lack of coordination between his racing mind and his slow joints, and the lack of agency against Irene’s movements has him sneering into the night as he clambers out of the vehicle. 

Jack hoists his Pulse Rifle up to eye level and takes up watch behind them. Ana makes similar gestures, although a few steps backward. 

“Jack. I’m going,” says the veteran sniper. The Eye of Horus sinks as a menacing shadow below the acidic glint in her eye. She backs up further. 

“Boss!” Hanzo looks around the sinking frame of the car to see Vandergild’s lumbering build amble toward them, hefting a massive military bag. He slings from over his shoulder, and it lands on the ground at McCree’s feet. 

“Ammo,” he huffs. He stomps up to Hanzo, thrusting an earpiece into his outstretched hand. “Carlson’s in the array on intel and comms. Two squads on front lines, one squad auxiliary, and two on rotation between turrets and flanks. Enemy have mortars and stealth operatives.” He transmits a slough of map data onto Hanzo’s phone. “Codenames Reaper and Widowmaker are also on the scene. They are aiming to isolate the dormitory area.” 

Despite the roiling in his gut, Hanzo switches gears on instinct. He replaces Jack’s earpiece with Vandergild’s. 

“Hanzo, at your service.”

The comm buzzes and shrieks with a pandemonium of enthusiastic whooping. 

“Murray,” he rasps. “Location.” 

The familiar sqreak of Murray’s voice responds immediately. “Robotics roof.” She’s shaky, quick, like sleet slipping through his fingers. “She’s toying with me.” 

McCree is unzipping the duffel, fishing out 3 auto-loaders. He underhand tosses a fully stocked quiver to Hanzo, who nods graciously at Vandergild. 

“Where d’you want me?” asks the blonde giant. 

“Get me enemy positions and regroup with Carlson. Act as auxiliary front until otherwise instructed.” 

Vandergild salutes and trots off toward the front of the complex. 

Gilbert’s voice crackles in his ear. “Breakage in West wall. Omnic activity. Relocating C Squad.” 

Jack snaps his fingers. “We got company on our backside.” 

Indeed, there is a shuffling in the darkness. The tiniest resound of a footstep permeates through the dirty underbrush. 

Hanzo ducks behind the bumper of the car. “We must remain in control of the dormitory and medbay block until after midnight. Retain tighter surveillance and defensive maneuvers in that area.” 

Jack fires once, twice, into the shadows. A canister flops down from over the retracted edge of the supply gate. With blinding responsiveness, the Soldier kicks the can back into the underbrush. A spurting crawl of gas spurts from between the needles. 

“Move, Shimada,” barks Jack. “Get to your people. I’ll deal with Reaper.” 

“I’m gonna take care o’ these here and do a sweep around the joint. See you in a bit, sweetheart.” Jesse idles his hand on Hanzo’s bare shoulder before slipping past, un-holstering Peacekeeper. He whistles as he steps into the fog emanating from the brush, loading his revolver… 

Hanzo is flying. One foot after another. He hasn’t felt this smooth in weeks. Yet, he knows only the adrenaline shooting through him makes this possible. Here, on _his_ turf, they have made themselves known. And for that, says the assassin in his blood, they will witness a reckoning. The faint, hollow reminder of his limitations nonetheless beckons in the back of his mind as he skids around corners, dashing madly toward the robotics lab. 

The cold snap in the air comes just as he rounds onto the burnt husk of the Administrative Complex. The ground in front of him turns upward at the same time the crash of her rifle echoes off the shadow-soaked Watchpoint. He lurches to a stop and dives back around the corner just as the red flash peaks in the distance. 

She is here. 

“Boss. She’s on you.” 

“Stay low. She can see through the walls. Keep two surfaces between her and yourself,” he hisses into the microphone. 

The shot came from the observation deck. She has full range of his only path to Murray. Hanzo fumbles through a spike of exhaustion. Risk it and run, or try to come up with a distraction?

He settles on calmly nocking an arrow, drawing the string all the way back, settling into a stance. A breath in… out. Eliminate all distractions. The sound of battle fades into a faraway murmur. 

He opens his eyes, exhales through his nose, and turns on a heel. He lets go at the same time he leans back into the shadow.

The sound is late. The timing almost frustrates Hanzo. The shock of wind lifting the frayed edges of his hair, the succinct _paff_ of a massive bullet caving into the ground behind him. 

_Then_ the chaotic and venomous sting of her rifle. He presses his back against the wall. 

He hears his arrow bounce off something metal once, twice, and then the sound of something hitting the ground from a great distance up. She wouldn’t have fallen all the way to the ground. He remains steadfast in his positioning. 

“Do you have a visual?” he asks Murray. 

“No. I’m cornered,” comes the frightful whisper of Murray’s voice. 

The earpiece buzzes. “Talon broke through the blockade. Dorms under direct fire.”

“Torbjörn,” Hanzo breathlessly exclaims. 

“I’m working on it,” bellows the engineer. 

A sharpness twists within Hanzo. Widow is on the move. The short spring of her grappling hook can be heard over the chaos. Hanzo takes his chance to dodge roll directly into the jagged rubble of the Administrative Complex, burying himself just beyond a low wall. 

“Murray,” he spits. 

“Check,” she says. “Should I meet you on the ground?” 

“No!” Her rifle spits out another heinous bullet. This time, it appears she’s joined the fray at large. Hanzo curses under his breath. What is she aiming to do? He nocks another arrow and darts to a second area of cover—just above him is a cracked sheet of remnant glass. 

“Stay on high ground,” he finally whispers. 

“She is on top of the Comms Tower.” Ana’s voice draws smooth over the earpiece. Predatory, resilient, and sharpened with a twist of bloodthirst. A second, quieter rifle tears into the night sky, sparking off the edge of the communications tower. Hanzo can just barely track Widow’s figure sailing through the air once more. She lands on the edge of the high wall on the East of the complex. 

“Get your pup, Shimada,” says Amari. Her words are heavier than lead. She commands from on high, and Hanzo can hear the sharp snap of her loading another round into her gun. 

Hanzo complies, diving through the double doors in the robotics lab. 

“Contact,” says Jack. “Reaper is on top of the dorms.” 

Hanzo exhales into the musty air as he makes for the stairs, staying out of windows. The pieces are in place. Jack and Gabe, Ana and Widow. Now the defensive captain can organize his people, and draw their blood proper—

“Hi.” 

The sheer, placid wave of furious tundra that lingers on the edge of Hanzo’s deep breath can almost be felt as a deadweight drop in the temperature of the room. Since Genji, Irene is the only one who can draw that reaction from him. 

He feels the barrel of her gun against the back of his head. “I’m armed this time. So.” 

He sucks in a breath, eyes retaining the luminescent shine of pure killing rage. “Do you have any idea what kind of danger you are in right now?” 

“Oh, I have a _very_ good idea. I’m not head of intelligence for no reason, you know.” 

“So what are your intentions?” Hanzo says, composed, sharp. His hand closes around the head of an arrow. 

“I want to know how it feels,” she says. Hanzo can hear the shrug in her voice. “Inside you. The poison.” 

“I cannot tell you. I have already forgotten it.” 

The gun barrel trembles. The Talon exec is guffawing in mockery. Her raucous, staccato cackles echo into the emptiness of the room around them. “This has been fun. You are good. You react very quickly. You know, this isn’t my fault. We wouldn’t have even started this project so soon if our precious Widow hadn’t broken off. You can blame her. Though you can’t do anything about it.” Irene’s lips are suddenly inches away from the back of Hanzo’s ear. “She will pick you apart, nice and slow.” 

“That is your plan, then.” 

“Oui, my tiny man.” 

“Why stop me here? Why not let Widowmaker do her duty?” Hanzo looks up toward the stairwell, and withholds a smirk. Murray’s light step can be seen dropping just below the second story. 

“Oh, boo. You’ve been to my bar. I love a good performance, little man, you know this. I am so very impressed at yours. Though everywhere you went, you were just a second late, no? This is the nature of the undeserving.” 

Hanzo looks toward the stairwell again. Murray has vanished. 

“You want something from me.” 

Irene scoffs. “That dogged man’s perceptiveness has rubbed off on you.”

“Out with it, vile wretch. What is it?” 

“Have you any idea how mind control works, Mr. Shimada?” Irene clicks her tongue. “I suppose you wouldn’t. There is a delicate balance of chemicals involved. For our dear Widowmaker, we need something we cannot recreate on our own.” 

Hanzo barks a short, hollow laugh. “An admission of inadequacy.” 

“More a generous exposition. What is the code to the safe in your medbay?” 

Shock rumbles up through Hanzo, starting at his feet and nearly collapsing his airway. “What?” 

“Oh, yes. We’ve already been through there. You have been holding out on us, Mr. Shimada. I had no idea you had a specimen of your own.” 

How could they have possibly gotten in? The questions begin to panic Hanzo’s enfeebled faculties, rendering him paralyzed with the cold weight of Irene’s handgun pressed against the flesh of his neck. And then, through the commotion in his brain: specimen? A specimen of his own? 

Chelsea. 

“What have you done.” Hanzo’s voice is low, steadier now. If Irene was in a lethal situation before, the danger has just doubled. 

“Property acquisition.” 

A scuffling of feet. The quick, low-to-the-ground, and abrupt flash of movement. The barrel of the gun lifts from Hanzo’s neck for just a split second—all he needs. 

Irene utters a surprised shriek as Murray sweeps her legs out from under her with a solid kick. Hanzo pinches the gun by the grip before it clatters to the floor, and hefts it up into the palm of his hand. A 9-millimeter. “I am insulted. _This_ is the weapon with which you meant to threaten me.” He turns it on her as Murray steps back. 

Irene grunts, shifts to a squatting position. “It’s empty.” The villainess scowls. 

Hanzo tosses it to the side.

Murray points her own handgun at the woman. “Was it you?” Her voice is trembling. 

Irene rolls her eyes. “What is this melodrama. My ride is here.” 

Murray slams the butt of the gun into Irene’s forehead, bucking her back against the tile floor. A guttural yelp gurgles from her throat in response. 

“Murray,” says Hanzo calmly. 

“You put the card in her pocket, didn’t you? It was you. You were there. At the bar. You did it.” She points the gun again. 

The distant gunfire grows louder. A flashbang, or perhaps something bigger, goes off somewhere between the robotics lab and the communication tower—it illuminates the blood trickling down Irene’s face. 

“Oh, Jesus!” Irene chortles. “I thought you were just rambling incoherently!” 

Murray inhales. 

“Carla,” Hanzo beckons. 

Broken-eyed, with a wet face and trembling lips. “She did it, boss. She killed Hardy.” 

“Pull the trigger if you wish. But know that it will not make your grief any lighter,” says her captain. “And end it in one blow.” 

For the first time, a spike of fear shoots across Irene’s face. “No, but I really must be going,” she says. 

“You entered the battlefield on your own,” Hanzo says, placing a light foot on her knee. “You knew the consequences.” He steps down, hard, fast, with all of his rage in his heel. He hears the _snap_ , and Irene screeches in agony. 

Murray still stands with the gun pointed. 

“Are you prepared?” Hanzo asks. “You want hers to be the first blood that stains your hands?” 

Irene writhes on the ground, moaning, clutching and clawing at her disjointed kneecap. “You all will burn here! Burn!” 

The windows break. Glass shards litter the floor. Hanzo dives for Murray as gunfire deafens him. 

The two hit the stairs at a bad angle—Hanzo’s lower back erupts in flame and Storm Bow clatters violently against the wall. They descend halfway down the stairs into the storage basement, bullets casting overhead. 

Murray scrambles with her hands on her head to the corner of the landing, while Hanzo remains on his feet and as low to the ground as possible. 

The gunfire rattles on, ringing in his ears, and then ceases. The loud bark of the engine outside putters outside. Other gunfire sounds closer, too. A quick exchange between Ana and Widowmaker can be heard, ripping twice through the sky high above. 

Something stills Hanzo’s erupting heart for just a moment. A horrible, discordant noise can be heard over the crunching glass and rumbling guns. It renders a singular realization in Hanzo. Something about that confrontation went right for Janssen. She paid for it with her leg, but she got what she wanted. A connection he cannot make yet, some forlorn feeling set by the ruinous quake of the noise. 

Irene is laughing. 

The footsteps of the Talon soldiers grow closer. Hanzo motions with two fingers, just inside Murray’s field of vision. Left. 

He loads a Scatter Arrow. Quietly, he pulls back light. toward the ceiling. Murray readies her handgun, aiming down to the left. 

The archer fires at the ceiling almost directly above. The splintering shrapnel of the Scatter Arrow descends instantly upon contact. The metal rain surely hits at least three bodies, as groans and shuffling can be heard. 

A Talon agent’s helmet pokes up over the railing to the left. Murray takes the shot, right in the center of the chest. The enemy falls backwards, sprawled into the tile. 

Hanzo experiences an unexpected pang of relief. A much more fitting first confirmed for his subordinate. He readies a Sonar Arrow, again planting it in the ceiling. It pings instantly.

Hanzo flies up the steps, barely pulling his next arrow back before firing it directly through the last agent’s throat. 

“Clear,” he rasps, sullen. Irene is nowhere to be found. 

Murray sways up next to Hanzo. “She got away.” 

Hanzo turns from her. “Yes.” He sees the truck pull around the corner of the dismantled main gate through the husk of the Administrative Complex. Peering out into the dead air through a shattered window hollows a space in his chest. 

“I… failed again.” Murray trembles, just above a hoarse, dry whisper. 

“No. You followed orders precisely and went up against a master sniper all on your own. There is no failure in this,” Hanzo breathes. He regards the slight woman, puffy-eyed and hugging her oversized jacket around her shoulders. Her rifle slung across her back, she is somehow reminiscent of Ana, perhaps a result of Hanzo’s exhausted delirium. 

“I don’t know what to say or do, Boss.” 

“Stay alert.” Hanzo presses on the earpiece. “Status.” 

Jesse buzzes in almost immediately. A reprieve swells. “I’m comin’ to you, then we double back to the medbay. Flores was workin’ with Torbjörn on somethin’. A treat, if-you-will.” 

“You’ll have to cross the old ladies’ pissing contest to get there,” says Gilbert. 

“Murray and I are en route to the medbay. Check on Mrs. Begay immediately. Irene knew about the safe.” Hanzo cuts out and walks slow and cautious with Murray at his heel. They edge through the ajar door out into the central courtyard. 

Ana and Widowmaker exchange fire again. Part of the paneling on the observation deck caves in. Hanzo sees Ana’s huddled figure dexterously flip over the railing just as another bullet grazes it. She hits the ground in a graceful roll and again dodges fire by slipping into the alley between the mess hall and defensive array. 

Ana holds her finger up to her lips, half her body obscured by the corner of the alley.

With her grappling hook, Widowmaker curtails through the air once more and lands on the roof of the robotics building, just above the duo. 

Back pressed against the wall (with Murray exhibiting the same movement), Hanzo recognizes the situation. 

So does his subordinate: “They’re trying to find where they can see everything,” Murray whispers, barely audible. “It’s a race.” 

The smirk crawls across Hanzo’s face, pride welling up inside his stomach. He looks Ana directly in the eye and shakes his head. _There isn’t one._ Talon had made sure of them on their own by destroying the Administrative Complex, whose roof leered directly down the central walkway of the compound, in turn revealing almost every corner. 

Ana smiles back. She points at Hanzo, and then points up. _Close in._

Widowmaker fires again as Ana blindly shoots into the sky. A distraction.

Hanzo presses a knuckle on Murray’s arm. “Circumnavigate the back of the building. Remember: two surfaces. As soon as you hear her fire, make for the medbay. Go the long way, do not go near the dorms.” 

“What about you?” Murray frowns deep. 

“I have tasks.” 

“She is heading to the dorms. It’s almost time,” says Ana, as if on cue. 

Hanzo squints into the night, waiting. The Watchpoint has fallen mostly silent—spurts of gunfire erupt from corners of Grand Mesa; stray Talon agents hunted by Hanzo’s team. Murray, the puny silhouette, dashes toward the makeshift blockade and into the medbay-dorms courtyard. 

He breathes relief. Widow can be seen just above, though, and while the turrets are trained on her, she has taken cover on the observation deck. 

Jesse steps into Hanzo’s vision from the main gate, tilting his hat somberly. He approaches Hanzo, tilts the archer’s head up with a solitary, metal finger. 

“It is time,” Hanzo says. 

“We’re doin’ this,” agrees the cowboy. “It’s almost Gérard O’Clock.”

Hanzo looks at his ring, and then into Jesse’s deep eyes. The way the moonlight softens his lips perfectly prompts a quick peck. “We go.” 

***

The three-minute intermission of Jesse essentially dragging Hanzo across the Watchpoint lets the exhaustion seep in. A wretched, familiar sensation has set into his bones as well; the shadow toxin returns in sparse waves of dull ache. It is true. The Watchpoint has cursed him. 

The rattle of errant combat still permeates the otherwise still air. The moon casts everything in a pale; the tableau seems two-dimensional. Hanzo takes in the destruction as they move urgently along. Broken windows, exploded sidewalks, mangled corpses of both Hanzo’s team and Talon. He stares into the blanched faces of the Overwatch casualties. He knew all of their names. The dead weight in his chest grows bigger. It hollows, and Genji’s strangled voice from his dream throttles his eardrums. Nevertheless, the defense captain pushes onward, steel-set to make sure his side will suffer no further deaths. Talon has taken enough. It is time for them to pay. 

They amble past the broken down blockade and into the medbay plaza. The dorms are buzzing with activity. Just inside, one can hear the wretched snarls of Reaper’s shotguns, succinct and predatory loud. 

Christen and Anundhatta greet them in the plaza. Torbjörn is bursting from the medbay doors as soon as Hanzo sets a weary foot in front of the omnic. 

“Chelsea’s gone,” Torbjörn says in a dead voice Hanzo has never heard. The engineer is still in shock—his face is neutral, his clammy hands remain still. “They took her.” 

Anundhatta casts an angled gaze at the disfigured remains of a neon-painted Omnic nearby. “It is my fault. I should have been with her.” 

A flurry of footsteps. Hanzo whips his head around to see a trio of Talon soldiers attempting to surprise them, moving fast and already aiming their dirty guns. 

Torbjörn blows the top of one’s head off with his gun. 

A bullet rings out and clips Anundhatta in the side of the head. Sparks fly from the contact point and the medic’s head jerks back with surprise. A Talon is suddenly upon them, gun pressed up into their abdomen plate. 

Jesse point-blank massacres the third one. 

Helpless, Hanzo watches every agonizing second of the trigger depressing for Anunhdatta’s attacker… 

The enemy jerks back, a cloud of crimson erupting from their chest. Gilbert stands at the other end of the plaza with a smoking carbine in his arms. 

Jesse elbows Hanzo, the most unreserved of smug grins etched into his face. 

“Get in there!” shouts Torbjörn as a massive _boom_ rattles the dorms—Hanzo surmises Helix Rockets. Anundhatta falls to their knees while Christen kneels to examine them. 

Gilbert charges forward, regrouped and lead by Hanzo and Jesse. 

Torbjörn drops his shotgun on the ground, watching Ana drop down from nowhere and sprint forward to join the entourage. He scoops it up and trundles after her. 

“She’s in there,” Amari calls breathlessly. 

“Hold up, now,” says Jesse, thumbing a top-off bullet into Peacekeeper. “On three.” 

The gunslinger inhales through his nostrils, setting eyes on the stone-still double doors. Silence has depressed upon the building. 

“One,” says Hanzo. 

“Two,” says Amari. 

“Three! Go!” shouts Torbjörn 

Hanzo kicks open the double doors and immediately rolls to the side. A red haze flashes in Jesse’s eye as he lightly presses down on Peacekeeper’s hammer… 

Hanzo can never quite put together how McCree’s hands move in the Dead-Eye. It’s almost as if he doesn’t pull the trigger at all, just jerks the gun around in short, succinct motions with shots firing inhumanly fast. 

Three shots snap into the building, almost at the same time. 

Hanzo hears Reaper’s inhuman retching as his shadowy form slumps to the ground. He peers around the threshold. 

Jesse has shot a Reaper twice, black blood trickles from his shoulder and from under his cracked mask. The piéce de résistance: Widowmaker’s slumped form on the ground just behind him. 

Jack stands to the left. Hanzo can’t tell where Harris’ crusty gore and the fresh blood begins. 

The foursome moves in. Gilbert treads lightly up on the rear. Amari approaches Widowmaker, sights trained and completely unmoving. Jesse and Hanzo walk up to Reaper together. 

“Time,” says Hanzo. 

“11:22,” breathes Jesse. 

The ache shoots forward a sudden surge of pain. Hanzo nearly doubles over, clutching at his abdomen. His spine feels paralyzed. 

Jesse places a hand there, the other on his back. “Hey, you need to back out?” 

Hanzo shoots him a frigid look. “No.” 

The gunslinger frowns, but acquiesces, resigning instead to prop the archer up. 

“Her visor is broken,” Amari calls. “But she is breathing.” 

The lights flicker. 

Reaper begins to choke on a wet, coughing laugh. “I win,” he says, rasping around a mouthful of black ink. 

Widowmaker rolls to the side to reveal a venom mine. Ana leaps back as it bursts, forming a cloud of poison. 

Hanzo, pushes as hard as he can against the toxin. In the end, he gets his legs to move, at the cost of the rest of his energy. This next arrow will be his last. 

He pulls the drawstring back as Widowmaker grapples in a wide arc around the room. He feels Gérard’s presence coalesce in the shadows at the edges of the entry lounge. He appeared here last time, using Chelsea as an anchor. 

Perhaps he will use Hanzo now. He is about to fire when the lights go out. 

Jesse’s hand is on his back, dropping him low to the ground. He keeps the drawstring pulled, angling the bow against the tile. 

“Least she can’t see us, either,” Jesse says of Widow’s broken visor. 

A bright orange flash of light bursts from behind them. Torbjörn has fired a flare up into the ceiling, suffocating everything in a filter of increasingly dull orange—almost like a campfire. 

Hanzo eyes the darkness. Reaper is standing. Jack fires at him, spattering ropes of ink across the flooring. Reaper staggers backwards with every bullet, but emits his horrific, wet chortling all the while. 

Hanzo’s eyes adjust to the low lighting, and jerks hard against his own knees, nearly buckling. 

Gérard stands just to the right of Reaper. 

“Watch—” Jesse starts, but is suddenly flung backward. Widowmaker seems to simply appear where he stood. Hanzo curses; a javelin of fury spikes his chest. He is hallucinating again. Causality vanishes. 

He lowers the bow, relaxing the drawstring, stepping back from Widowmaker. She initially begins to raise her weapon, but her line of sight meet’s the wavering, dripping form of Gérard. 

She freezes. Her eyes widen. Her lips tremble. 

Hanzo nearly gasps through a sudden sob—she looks like her. Right here, in this moment, staring down the bizarre emulation of her dead husband, Widowmaker looks like Amélie. 

Jack reloads. Ana fires a sleep dart. It jabs into Reaper’s neck, but is just as soon forced out by a bubbling black shadow. He wraps his clawed hand around Gérard’s throat. 

“This is what Overwatch left you. Ingrate. Ana. This is Jack’s legacy,” says Gabe, echoing the screams of the dead. Gérard, dead-eyed, mouth split by an earthshattering grin, succumbs. It hangs there in Reaper’s grasp. 

With his other hand, he lifts his mask. 

“Are you going to let this happen?” Hanzo asks of Widowmaker. He sees his chance. He pulls back the drawstring again, slow, just outside her field of vision. 

Her eyes meet his for a second, fearful and panicked. They drop to the bow. 

“That made you this way. He made you this way. What are you going to do?” Hanzo says with steady breath. 

“No!” she shouts, dropping her gun. In a moment of utter mental dissonance for Hanzo, she slaps herself. “No! _I_ am Widowmaker.” She looks at Reaper. Hanzo cannot see from his angle what is underneath the mask, but his hood flits forward and begins twitching into Gérard’s neck. 

“No!” Widow shouts. “I can see… it… here… it is here… somewhere… Gérard…” She claws at ht mess of her own hair, cutting her fingers on the sharp edges of her broken visor. 

Hanzo works through the utter disorientation. “What are you going to do? They did this to you. They made you.” 

She stills. Stares Hanzo right in his eyes, yellow, predatory, and suddenly smirking. 

“No.” She still has a hand weaved through her frayed hair. 

Lightning-quick. Hanzo cannot even hope to react with as the toxin increases in potency. A sickly smell fills his nostrils. It has descended on him full-force now. 

Jesse fires at her, but misses as she leaps at Hanzo, kicking Storm Bow right out of his hands. She grabs him by the strap of his quiver and throws him to the ground too easily, knocking the air out of him. His arrows spill out all over the floor. 

He can see, from the floor, numbed and aching and vividly imagining the fireflies flitting in Torbjörn’s campfire, Reaper gorge himself on Gérard. He is literally devouring the man, twitching into the darkness. 

Jack is rushing forward, but a wave of shadow knocks him back. 

A similar wave pushes Ana to the ground. It nearly snuffs Torbjörn’s campfire out, though he tumbles backwards, too.

Gilbert is out cold the second the back of his head hits the floor. 

Another one hits Jesse, slamming him into a pillar. He slumps to the ground. 

This can’t be. This can’t be happening. Widowmaker wraps her hands around his throat. She is just as manic as she was on the highway. Her eyes twitch, her mouth trembles. 

“No. I am the Widow-Maker. And I made my _self_.” 

Several things occur at once. First, Gérard dissolves into a loud, screeching shadow, as if metal is scraping against metal. Reaper chokes, spits, and begins moaning in time with the scraping noise. It is utterly deafening. 

Hanzo looks for something—anything—as his windpipe constricts under her grasp. He is too weak to lift his arms. His vision blurs, but Jesse is still moving. The gunslinger crawls forward, twitching and grunting and reaching… he wraps his hands around something. Slight, thin, glowing with a single strand of blue. Hovering, maybe? No, there are two of them. How many? What is it? Fireflies? 

Scatter Arrows. He mouths, _no_ , _no_ , _NO_ \-- 

Jesse brings his metal fist down with the handful of Scatter Arrows, as hard as he can. Hanzo can see the blurred lines as the tile caves underneath his fist.

Reaper shrieks as the shards enter his body. Hanzo feels one rip by his cheek, leaving a shallow cut. Widowmaker gasps and grunts, collapsing. 

Blue streaks, hot metal, and darkness. 

***

Did he fall asleep, or is it just too dark to see? Hanzo decides on the latter, and tries to crawl forward. Surprisingly, it is easier than he expected. Working up the energy, he moves to his knees. He feels around him. His hands brush the shaft of an arrow. There is no motion. No sound. Silence depresses his ears. 

Hanzo sucks in a breath when he realizes he can still hear Torbjörn’s flare in the ceiling. The absolute, pitch black seems to have no edges. 

And then it is gone. 

It all coalesces, leaving the lights flickering back on. Hanzo’s eyes scan the room. Ana, Jack, and Torbjörn have their guns pointed directly at Reaper’s head. Jesse is slumped on the floor, metal arm mangled with fingers hanging off and prying in random directions. 

Widowmaker lies on the floor, too, bleeding from numerous entry points. 

The dark orb in the middle of the room solidifies into Reaper once more. He picks up his mask and affixes it to his face before turning to the kneeling archer. 

“I win,” he repeats. A tendril of darkness shoots along the ground as flat as a shadow, and wraps around Widowmaker’s bleeding body. 

Ana is the first to fire. The bullet hits Reaper, but then Hanzo notices what’s different. The demon no longer has an outline. It stands, as Gérard stood, several inches off the ground and melds perfectly as a black hole in the universe, the mask the only thing that gives him substance. 

Widowmaker slides by Hanzo, who tries to react, but nearly falls forward instead. The tendril is dragging her to Reaper. It sucks her up into his form, and he flings himself upward into the ceiling, becoming completely two-dimensional. 

The mask scrapes along the flat surface, smashing light bulbs as it crawls viciously toward the doors. 

Jack fires at it, bullets raining off the ceiling, but it moves too quickly to be tracked. Jack taps the side of his visor, emitting a spray of holographic light, and manages to hit the mask several times. It shatters, but the shadow continues, successfully reaching the exit and evaporating into the night. 

“Fuck!” shouts Jack, throwing his empty rifle into the wall. He slams his fist repeatedly into the ground. 

“We do not know where they are. We had better move to the medbay for its shuttered windows,” Hanzo says, although it comes out as nearly a groan. He attempts to stand, and again slumps forward. 

Gilbert wraps his arm around Hanzo’s, pulling him to his feet. 

They walk out into the plaza, Hanzo bracing Gilbert. Gilbert whistles at Anundhatta. “McCree is in there. He’s unconscious.” 

The medic moves swifter than he’s ever seen, slipping into the building as Hanzo limps slowly toward the medbay. Christen runs up to Hanzo. They are also greeted by Murray and Flores, who offer him his cane. 

He accepts it, letting go of Gilbert and leaning into the sidewalk. He remains detached by a layer of fugue—Widowmaker’s words have nothing short of baffled him. 

Anundhatta emerges with Jesse leaning on them a few minutes later. Hanzo twitches. He is hoarse, and barely conscious, but he manages to strange out a few words: “you stupid cowboy…” 

Jesse smirks and tips his hat. “Yer welcome, darlin’.” He sounds just as weak. 

Anundhatta passes Jesse off onto Jack. “I have prepared a room for them,” they say.

Jack nods, and follows the omnic with Jesse in tow. Hanzo follows, breathing hevy, relying entirely on his cane. 

Flores salutes, bags under his eyes and a bandage crossing his bare torso. “Talon is officially off the premises, boss.” 

Ana stares at the ground. “I do not think they’re coming back. Gabriel did not have a right with himself. He must retreat. We saw it before when the hovercraft fell on him in Israel, yes?” 

Jack nods. He says nothing. Hanzo scoffs inwardly. Coward. 

“Get rest,” says the archer. “Reaper is twice as strong and in an unknown location.” 

“Hole up in th’ medbay until dawn,” says Torbjörn. “That’ll be the safest place until we can flee this fucking dump.” He looks to Ana and Jack, sighs. 

Ana cheeses at him, despite everything. “You are looking well, Torbjörn.” 

“Did we win?” Murray asks finally. Timid, withdrawn. 

Hanzo stares hard at the ground, pausing for a moment. A thunderous clap erupts in his stomach, and he coughs. He stills once more, taking in a rattly breath. He looks at her, and says nothing. 

***

“Mr. Lindholm,” says a disembodied voice. Hanzo recognizes it as Torbjörn’s chemicals expert, Shara. He can hear her chattering on before he opens his eyes. He is pressed up against Jesse, who is pressed up against the wall. The gunslinger is shirtless, but still wears his bloody jeans and boots. Hanzo is much in the same vein, wearing only a pair of hospital scrubs. They are in the medbay, sharing a twin bed. Hanzo scoots forward, leaving Jesse stirring, and snatches his cane off the wall. 

The morning light filters in through the shutters of the windows in the tiniest, yellow lines. Hanzo looks at them and the way they delineate Jesse’s features. The gunslinger opens his eyes, and slowly grumbles to a stand. 

Hanzo attempts once more to process everything that had happened the night before. Reaper seems to have succeeded in absorbing the nano-webbing. 

“The business card was doused with a strange liquid pheromone,” the voice says, muffled by the door. 

Hanzo slides the door open to see Shara and Torbjörn just outside his room. 

“Oh! Did I wake you?” 

Hanzo holds up a flat hand, giving a succinct shake of the head. “No.” 

“Ye look like shit,” says Torbjörn. 

“Thank you,” rasps the archer. “Ms. Lai, please continue.” 

“Oh, I was just talking about how the analysis of Irene Janssen’s business cards was completed as of four this morning! You see, they are soaked in a liquid pheromone, very reminiscent of the vial of poison _we_ have.” 

It locks into place. The final piece. Hanzo shoulders past them, leaving Torbjörn muttering bitterly behind him. Jesse ambles to catch up. 

“Hold up, sweetheart. Where ya goin’?” 

“Widowmaker. Irene wanted the vial in the safe because she could not make more of the pheromone without it.” 

“Aw, can we take fifteen goddamn minutes to rest, Hanzo?” says Jesse. “You’re gonna work yourself raw.” 

“It is too late for that. We do not have time. They could be anywhere.” Hanzo opens the door to the Talon room. He notices Shara and Torbjörn following them. Anundhatta is already in the room when Hanzo enters. 

“Mr. Shimada, you are not quite well enough to be up and about, I do not think,” they say. 

Hanzo waves them off, punching 1122 into the safe. 

“I have been examining the space,” says Anundhatta, resigned to Hanzo’s drive. 

Jesse is not, as he mumbles and lights a cigarillo, shooting a look at the head medic that says, _I dare you to tell me to put this out._

Anundhatta slides a hand along the wall, and presses into the center of the Talon insignia. A hatch opens in the floor next to the chair. 

“I discovered this. It is possible that this is how Talon got into the hospital and abducted Chelsea. It is also possible that there are more of these.” 

“There are,” says Hanzo grudgingly. He looks to the tunnel. It presumably leads into the woods where Widowmaker had made her refuge—and it explains much more to the archer, as well. “There is one on the roof. Widow used it to get away from me the first night she attacked.” 

Torbjörn storms into the room, flanked by Shara. “What’s all this commotion! Git back in bed, Shimada, don’t be an idiot.” 

Hanzo ignores him. “Widowmaker has been conditioned to follow the pheromone. That is how she targets people with the business cards.” He hefts the vial into the air, and uncorks it, turning to the sink in the corner. 

“She can sense that pheromone from miles away, then,” says Jesse. He edges. Hanzo wonders briefly why there’s a lilt of hysteria in Jesse’s voice. 

Something rings in the back of Hanzo’s head. He brushes it aside and starts to pour the mixture down the drain. 

“Perhaps even longer. I posit she sensed it when we started renovations, and it triggered her departure from Numbani. Irene knew that must’ve been why, and attempted to reel her in.” 

“Hanzo,” says Jesse, voice uneven and cautious. “Hanzo, you—”

“Hardy was a _test_ ,” rages Hanzo. “To see how easy our security was, and to see if Widow would still respond to smaller doses.” 

“Hanzo.” Jesse sounds broken suddenly. Hanzo is just about to drain the last of the liquid when he realizes what he’s done. The gunslinger dives forward, shouting unintelligibly. 

In all of this. In all of the mess, in all of the chaos and the revelations and the bitter defeats. In all of his experience. His laudation, his awards, his promotion. In all he saw coming, in all he didn’t see coming. 

The last drop hits the sink with a soft _pang_. She can sense it from miles away. Perhaps even longer. _Failure_ , says Genji’s rotten voice. 

She doesn’t need the visor for this. 

It’s the sound of the shutter ripping open first that freezes time for him. He almost feels as if he maybe could turn and look the bullet in the face. He knows it’s coming, and just like everything else, he is just simply too late. 

It doesn’t hurt, actually. That part is nice. Perhaps it will be more pleasant than Hanzo expected. Certainly more than he deserves. 

The metal enters his skull, and his vision goes white.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Breathe. There are still three chapters to go.


	14. Chapter 14

He slept on the floor for years. 

Nowhere he went had a bed. Every time the exhaustion took him over, he’d collapse in the nearest safe spot, not even bothering to look for a proper shelter. Maybe it was penance. Maybe it was laziness. 

When he finally answered the Recall (on accident; he’d stumbled into a spectacular brawl featuring rogue omnics and one Genji Shimada), he met the most beautiful man in the world. The most put-together, triumphantly poised, lethal, brilliant plus brilliantly sharp—and drop-dead- _gorgeous_ being he’d ever seen was his reward for the reunion. 

He slept in a bed for the first time in almost eight years then. 

He fought with them in Nepal, earned his pardon, officially rejoined the global task force. He stayed, fixated and later affixed _to_ this man. With his soft marble skin contrasting dense bone and perfectly toned muscle. The way sharp eyes peered into, through, past all they swept past in his alert, unblinking stance. 

“Never second best,” the man said. 

Never second best. 

The man was shy at first. The man pretended to be cold, stoic and withdrawn. But to him, who’d slept so long on the floor, alone—a shivering body against an unforgiving surface—it was obvious. 

Everything is always so _obvious_. You just have to know how to look. Having a magic eye doesn’t hurt. But when the man, obstinate, precise, composed—when he offered him the confession of his love in the form of warm sake with the backdrop of a frozen Beijing night just before Christmas, nothing was so obvious as the end of the embargo for his feelings. For his intrusive and yet isolating life, formed of habit and instinct and the warm blur of room-temperature whiskey. 

The man was shy, and grew warmer, and warmer. Until he managed to make the man laugh. Until they slept in a bed _together_. Until he could sink his teeth into the man’s soft flesh and perfect muscle, brush his lips against his high cheekbones. Until they could press their foreheads together, eyes closed, and listen to the hum of each other’s hearts. 

Some things stayed dark, unlit, and diffused into the man’s nervous tension. They would, one by one, shine as luminescent, flawless flaws in the constellation of the man’s eyes. As he embraced the man through his night terrors—and the man reciprocated in turn. As he held back the jet-black, soft and pleasant-smelling hair back while the man churned his guts out into the toilet from alcohol withdrawal. As the man took him to his homeland, and they grew rooted together like willow trees on the bank of a river. 

When he proposed to the man, eyes wet and water hot, he’d gone a year sleeping in beds nearly every single night. Three hundred sixty-five days of warm sheets, and most often with a warm partner. Their legs entangled, souls following suit. Lips brushed against lips, ice against fire, curling into each other always even if the world fell apart around them. Even if the skies rained fire, they would coalesce into one and watch it burn, encased in each other. 

Tonight he watches the sky burn, alone. Tonight, arms folded awkwardly underneath himself, boots scuffing the shine out of the new tile, his senses bring him nothing but the smell of sterility and the deep rumble of an unsettled stomach. 

Tonight, he sleeps on the floor. 

***

Jesse has always made waking up in the morning the most egregious task possible. He stirs, hesitant to ever actually leave his bed. 

This time, the medbay floor is too cold. Saliva pools under his chin. He only moves to sit up because the hard tile is uncomfortable against his skin, soaking into his beard, cooling his face. 

The heart monitor beeps erratically for short spurts and then resumes its normal beat. Critically unstable. Everything seems cast in monochrome, colors sinking in to his eyes slowly, gradually intensifying. The green of the vitals monitor goes from pastel sage to emerald. 

The scarf goes from heather gray to sunrise yellow. 

Filtered in through the still-closed metal shutter, the sunlight seems meager and hesitant today. It crawls in thin lines across white tiling. The room is cold. Jesse’s skin seems colder as he slaps himself awake. Splashes water onto his unkempt face. Looks down, appraises the bent metal and torn, vibrating ligaments of his destroyed prosthetic. His pinkie hangs off in a bemused, errant direction, twitching ever so often as the fuses underneath misfire. He holds a steady hand to his metal wrist, inhaling sharp from the harsh air conditioning. 

He holds his head, vision swaying, as he uneasily drops down against the wall once more, staring at the hospital bed. His eyes draw from the pale mint of the thin sheets to the pallid flesh that rests on it. What was a bioluminescent white, a perfect slate of ice in the yawn of a full moon, is gray, flat, featureless. It repels even the unnatural light of the fluorescents buzzing above. 

Jesse does not bring his eyes up to meet Hanzo’s face. Instead, he stares intensely at the slack arm laying photograph-still against the hospital sheets. The veins there, visible beneath the fading skin, are blue, swollen. Interrupted by the creased, starchy, stiff gown at his sleeve. Hanzo’s clothes are folded up neatly on the table in the corner, next to his cane. Storm Bow sits in its case nearby, casting a long shadow that meets the wall. 

There is a knock at the door. Jesse remains silent as it creaks cautiously open. The gunslinger doesn’t look up, but hears the birdlike shuffling of Murray’s feet as her tiny face peeks around the door. 

She slips all the way into the room, holding a hot plate with a cover. Jesse remains affixed on Hanzo’s arm, vision still buzzy. His head rests on the flat of his palm, chewing a cigarillo. 

Murray cranes her head, sets the hot plate on the table. “Want to take a smoke break? It’ll be here when you get back.” She gestures at the food. 

Silent still, Jesse shakes his head once, then jerks to his feet. 

Murray stands above Hanzo with her hands crossed in front of her. She looks for a long time at his face. The gunslinger’s eyes sink into the side of her puffed cheeks. The look of mourning—no, the dejection of it, mars her petit and mousy features. Her face has sagged, and her shoulders slump under the weight of her loss. A familiar look. Jacket’s too big. She wears it like a security blanket. 

Carlson and Gilbert sit across from each other in the waiting room. McCree can overhear their conversation as Anundhatta opens the door and enters. 

“I think I’m still in shock,” says Carlson. 

“It’s been three days,” replies Gilbert. Low. Almost a whisper. “He’s not gonna make it.” 

“I know,” says the ganglier man. The espionage expert. “But it doesn’t feel real.” 

“Probably won’t ‘til the funeral,” says Gilbert.

“Don’t say shit like that, man.” 

“Shit like what? Boss got shot in the head? Boss is in a coma?” A snort. “Grow a pair. This is war.” 

“Shut the fuck up. I’m outta here.” 

The conversation fades as Anundhatta closes the door behind them. Jesse realizes as the stir of voices rises again that his nails have drawn blood in the center of his palm. They near the door, and Jesse can hear Flores murmuring to himself outside. He presses his hands into his ears, backing against the wall. 

“Boss…” the squeak of Murray. 

“I wanted…” the suave projection of Flores. 

Murray’s whole-body sobs. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry we failed you.” 

Jesse’s metal fist hits the wall, splintering the foremost knuckle even further. It buzzes and snaps, exposing an errant spring and a hot wire. He punches again, entering the drywall, spreading his broken fingers inside, yanking it back up and spraying flakes of paint and plaster over the floor. He retracts, counter-balances, and rushes forward again. 

“McCree.” Anundhatta places slender, metallic fingers on the back of Jesse’s neck.

Their voice attempts to soothe, but Jesse rears back and fists the wall again, this time emitting a guttural shout, cracking at the end as his metal fist opens up at the palm and a large, whirring mechanical piece drops out and skids across the linoleum. 

“Sorry,” he mutters. 

Anundhatta keeps their cold hand on the back of his neck. “I know that this is difficult, Mr. McCree—”

“Jesse,” says the gunslinger, voice cracking a second time. 

“Jesse.” 

“Don’t make me,” says Jesse. “Please, don’t.” 

“You must,” says Anundhatta. “This is difficult to hear, but the patient is unresponsive. Unstable. He may go at any moment. Please take this chance to say your goodbyes. You will regret it otherwise.” 

Flores and Murray, slumped into each other, leaning on one another for support. They stand, bathed in the light from Hanzo’s room. A moment passes, but simultaneous and hesitant, they nod. Murray turns her head, digging her face into Flores’ side, and begins to heave silently into his shirt. 

Heel-toe. Heel-toe. Jesse clambers up to the bed, and cannot resist but lock onto Hanzo’s face. 

When he was growing up, movies always showed him that people looked peaceful in death. People told him that death was a better place. No such thing as death. Only a change of worlds. 

Hanzo does not look peaceful. His thin lips are stretched into a long, taut line. His skin is just as clammy as before. Redness around his eyes, shallowness in his breathing, erraticism in the heart monitor, unmoving, relentlessly still. Relentlessly. 

The next step forward is the heaviest in the world. Hanzo’s eyes look just closed, as if maybe they were to spring open. As if maybe he’d just sit up, say something stoic and succinct, and Jesse would throw his arms around him and just enter his being, let himself be swallowed up, just disintegrate into Hanzo’s consciousness, into his body. 

The room remains still. Words choke in Jesse’s throat. They stumble, halt, confuse each other, and most of all, they suffocate him. A storm of everything he wants to say and nothing he wants to hear takes the air out of his lungs and the strength out of his legs. 

Finally, he manages in a hoarse, dead whisper, “please open yer eyes.” 

Tears hit the edges of his boots. “Please open yer eyes.” 

Darlin’. “Please.” Sweetheart. “Open up.” Honey of mine. “ _Please_.” 

Hanzo’s eyelids do not flutter. The bandage circling, lopsided, on the top of his head does not magically vanish. The lights don’t change. They’re not suddenly in Shibuya. They haven’t appeared outside a food stand with black pepper potato wedges. They’re not at Ojo Caliente, soaking under the blaring heat of the sun. 

They are in a hospital room, and Hanzo is leaving. Hands, slipped away, departing, into blackness. 

He can’t tell if he says “don’t go,” or thinks it. Either way, “goodbye” doesn’t even come to mind. 

He turns on his heel and walks jagged and unsteady out of the room. 

***

Outside, the air is hot and stuffy. Jesse lights the cigarillo immediately, letting the spicy smoke clear his sinuses and diffuse the blurriness in his vision. With each exhale, the sun seems to grow hotter. He takes off his chest plate, drops it on the ground. He shrugs his serape off, letting it flit to the ground at its own leisurely pace. 

With one shoulder bracing the sun-heated wall of the medbay, Jesse pushes along into midday. His steps are slow, uneven still, and there is something vile on the tip of his breath. He drowns it in cigarillo smoke, choking the entire thing down until just the nub is left. He flicks this into the trees. The rolling, pine-covered hills are sharper, jagged. Their nettles reach in all directions, clawing, retching, pulsating. 

Jesse vomits into a spray of underbrush and spends a good deal of time on his hands and knees, dry-heaving into heated air. The sun begins to work its way under his skin, and he feels even damper. Nevertheless, he smokes another cigarillo, letting the sweat proliferate and the sunburn strike at will. 

“Are ye gonna go?” asks Torbjörn from behind him. 

Jesse jumps, ever so slightly, but then slumps back down, lips pursed around the cigarillo. 

“Like last time. Ye gonna go?” asks the engineer again, moving to sit beside the gunslinger on the bench overlooking the Mesa. 

When Jesse finally speaks, his voice comes out rough and hoarse—sandy. It takes him a while to get the words out. “Ain’t decided yet.” 

“Yes, ye have,” says Torbjörn, folding his arms over his plump stomach. He strokes his beard with an idle finger while his claw sits lazy across his abdomen. “It was good te work with ye while it lasted.” Torbjörn, attached like a lost dog, ever taken with loyalty. Even his mutton chop days screamed “stay with me.” Product of a big family. He’s just going to let him go? 

Jesse stands. “Think it’s over that easy?” 

The older man, stout and permanently frowning, barks a raspy, dissociated laugh. “No. You obviously do, cowboy.”

Jesse stretches, moves back toward the medbay, then pauses. 

Torbjörn dangles on arm over the back of the bench as he turns to look at the halted gunslinger. “I got a pup t’ track down—she can’t walk. I figure they’re not very far, given.” The engineer’s voice is muted under a layer of dry mouth. His gums audibly unstick from his lips whenever he speaks. He has not ingested anything since the resounding loss. 

McCree scratches his chin. “Ya got any more-a that vodka?” 

***

“Took you for a whiskey man,” slurs Vandergild, tapping his pot belly and taking another swing out of his nearly empty forty-ounce. 

“I ain’t picky, long as you hold the ice,” McCree slurs back, tipping the last of Torbjörn’s vodka into his lips. He stares into the bonfire, stomach rumbling. He drops the empty bottle into the dirt and leans back into his camp chair. 

“So that’s it?” says the second hand. He ruffles his blonde hair with a limp hand, staring groggily up into the sky. 

McCree makes an explosion pantomime with his hands. “That’s it. I seen it before. Y’don’t wake up from this kinda coma.” The corner of his mouth tugs down involuntarily. 

Vandergild sits up. “We don’t gotta talk about it.” 

Jesse looks down at his hand. The ring glitters, doubly rosy in the light of the fire. The flames jump and dance and lick on it surface, also catching the topaz. The icy stone dazzles even in the warm light, light in a cold star on a hot night. “Naw.” 

“Amari and Morrison take off?” the blonde asks. 

McCree lights a cigarillo with the campfire. “Yup.” He eyes the dorms. From their makeshift bonfire in the ruins of the Administrative Complex, he can see the main gate from which the duo had departed. They said it “wouldn’t be right” to stay here another night. He got a pat on the back and a bleary-eyed look from Ana. That was all. Then they left. 

“What are you gonna do?” Vandergild asks. “Sorry.” 

McCree waves his prosthetic through the air, limp-wristed. “Don’t matter none. Reckon I’ll probably follow suit after…” 

Vandergild tenses. His eyes dart around, looking for something else to bring up. The Watchpoint at large doesn’t look much better than the husk of a building at which the two currently rest. Hanzo’s second in command. His favorite pupil. The blue-eyed giant folds his hands in his lap and puffs quietly into the night. Silent, like his teacher. But Vandergild is less reserved. He doesn’t feel as much, but he can’t hide it as well. Must come with time. Took Hanzo years. 

“You’re really gonna take off?” Maybe it’s the alcohol that has Vandergild feeling brave, if this is what he settled on to change the subject. 

Jesse gives a noncommittal shrug. 

Vandergild puts his hand against his face. “Oh, man.” He was hoping McCree would lead them, it shows all over the disappointment on his face. 

“What, you think I’d take his place. Uh-uh.” Jesse shakes his head, almost too quickly. 

Vandergild holds his hands up. “Nah, nah, I get it, man. It just… sucks to lose so many so fast.” 

Jesse laughs, short and bitter. “Welcome to Overwatch, partner.”

“You know I, um…” Vandergild trails off. He wants to make a statement about Hanzo. Jesse levels a gaze at him, puffing discreetly on the cigarillo. The way his frown casts off into the distance. The hesitance in his body language. He isn’t used to being vulnerable, or talking about feelings. Typical. “This is hard.” 

“You don’t gotta,” Jesse says, putting his hands on his knees and pushing away from the camp chair. 

“No, I do. Look, I just.” He scowls, frustrated with himself and embarrassed. His cheeks flush, and not from the alcohol. “It was an honor serving under him, and…” 

“Watch yourself, partner,” Jesse says. “Little raw.” Truly, he turns away from Vandergild and struts toward the dorms. 

“Look around you,” Vandergild says, darker, steadier. More confident. “I want… I _will_ do the same thing to them.” He wanted to be more specific, but couldn’t wrap his foggy mind around the words. Jesse waves behind him, disengaged. Empty words from a drunk cadet. 

He skips the medbay. He lingers for a second though, looking at the building in the pale light of the moon. He’s paused in the courtyard. Where he shot the holodiscs after copying them. Where Hanzo saw Gérard for the first time. 

The gunslinger enters the lounge in the dorms. Bullet holes decorate the walls. He looks at the cracked tile, fissured just where he’d brought his fist full of Scatter Arrows down into the once smooth flooring. Ceiling guts hang down like dead tendrils, obscuring the foot of the stairs. The tension in the air is still here. Reaper could’ve eaten that bundle of toxins and memories ten minutes ago, not days. Wouldn’t have made a difference. The room still feels like death. 

Up those same, cracked, chipped stairs McCree stumbles. The way his spurs jangle, unaccompanied by the soft patter of small feet, or the rough _clack_ of an aspen cane. He shoulders the wall, holding himself in his elbows. As he passes by windows, he is blinded by the light of the moon. It sears his eye sockets like the bite of the vodka. 

At last, he slides the door open into Hanzo’s room. Tea set untouched, closet unopened, incense unburnt. 

He doesn’t have any handle on the nuance of the tea; this much is obvious. Nevertheless, he brews himself a cup of the green. It’s watery, not anywhere near the flavor profile earned the way Hanzo made it. The numbness is partially alleviated by the steaming mug clutched in his working hand, the drunkenness giving way to short bursts of clarity. 

The tea is suddenly salty. McCree jabs a finger into his cheek. It comes off wet. He sets the half-drunk tea on the nightstand, and leans into the stiff sheets of the bed. It smells like black pine and wisteria, the ash of licorice incense and apricot blossoms. 

A sour, salty pool forms around the edges of Jesse’s vision. He inhales, and eagerly lets consciousness go. He never remembers his dreams. 

Thank God. 

***

“Up,” says Torbjörn. He comes into focus much in the same way as the day prior. Color gradients go from off-white to headache-inducing hues in the red of his spinning claw and the harsh glow of the light in his eyepatch. “Winston call.” 

Jesse says nothing. He slaps a flat hand on the alarm clock. Nine thirty. Grand Mesa will be warming soon. Better to get the puking out now than have to deal with the sweat on top of it. 

“If only Reinhardt were here to sling ye over his shoulder and shake the bullshit out of ye,” mutters the engineer. “When ye’d just made that deal with Reyes—”

“I heard ya,” interrupts the gunslinger, stunted and sloppy. “I heard ya,” he repeats, tries to swing himself up into a sitting position. He groans and falls back down onto his back instead. 

“Wish I’d known ye were gonna be _this_ worthless,” says Torbjörn over a rough sigh, “I’d have brought Vandergild te at least _try_ th’ Reinhardt thing.” 

“Gotta hurl,” says McCree. 

If there is a sound to be made of rolling someone’s eyes, Torbjörn makes it before plopping the wastebasket down in front of the bed. “Don’t got all day. Working on about five projects at once, cowboy.” 

“Yer a real ass-wagon, Torb,” Jesse says, hugging the wastebasket close. It comes soon after. Bile, wretched, sour and morose, squeaks out of his esophagus almost as one solid chunk. He coughs, spittle following the molten ejection into the basket. The haze settles in just as the vomit leaves his body, erupting his head in a skull-cracking headache. He braces his temple with his broken free hand and winces. 

“We’re all keeping busy. Shimada’d want that. Either do something productive er get out. When ye pick the latter, come see me at the lab.” Torbjörn stomps out of the room, grumbling under his breath in what may or may not be English. 

Jesse stares at the ceiling for a long time. Watches the blades of the fan spin, slow and lazy and perpetually unhelpful. 

The Watchpoint, as Jesse predicted, has already begun to heat up. The last flare of summer has taken hold of the area, and before it descends into the blustery fall, it will reach temperatures of over a hundred degrees. Teams of engineers and anxious, mourning soldiers slowly begin the work of digging shrapnel out of the walls, patching holes, marking areas too damaged to be repaired, and in some cases actually beginning the carpentry. The hole blasted in the wall has been mounted and framed. The turrets that had been destroyed have small, rifle-sized temporary replacements. 

Grand Mesa looks like a crippled soldier. Bandages have yet to cross its traumatized façade. Here it lies, in the dirt, under a shimmering blanket of heat, turning all of Torbjörn’s efforts into dust. 

Jesse lumbers through the midmorning haze into the robotics lab. Torbjörn is waiting, arms crossed. He leans against a side-strewn desk. Papers litter the floor, cracks in the ceiling and flooring spray uneven with wide gashes along every surface. Jesse takes a long, hard look at Torbjörn, and not the rubble. Not the broken glass littering the floor or the chunks of rebar poking out of the drywall. 

The holoscreen buzzes with a flash of static, a fuzzy picture focusing on the vague outline of the strike commander. 

Winston looks resolutely run down. He isn’t wearing his glasses. He pinches the bridge of his nose, sniffles, takes a sip of water. Finally, after a few minutes of awkward shuffling, settles his dreary gaze into the camera. 

“Uh, morning.” As always, the gorilla isn’t sure what to say. He fumbles with his words. His eyes dart, his tongue moves in a panicked flicker just behind his wide lips. Looking a the leftovers from the chaos. Digesting the real toll of the damage. “This isn’t an easy situation.” He’s taking in the view. The scene behind the gunslinger. The holes in the walls and the shattered windows. Scared. 

Jesse scoffs, tipping his hat just over his eyes. He folds his arms, a carbon copy of Torbjörn, and leans against another desk. His metal pinkie dangles off his hand at an awkward angle. 

“Listen, I... this is the first time that I….”

“Lost a soldier?” Jesse says through gritted teeth. 

“Now, from what I’ve been told, that isn’t a surety,” Winston says, rushed. 

Torbjörn spins his claw. “I need more resources if I’m going t’ fix this place back up, _commander_. In fact, it might be easier te scrap the whole thing and build a new base somewhere else.” 

Winston sits upright. “No. We need presence in that area yesterday.” He’s more confident. Passage of time. “It might be hard to hear right now, but getting rid of Gérard was actually a favor. Now they have no reason to come back, and our ghost is gone.” 

“Wasn’t a reason fer Widow comin’ back and…” Jesse clenches his jaw. He lights a cigarillo with trembling hands, sucks the smoke in with all of his lung capacity. He drowns the sound of his seized heart with the fire in his lungs. 

“Bloodthirst,” says Torbjörn. “You oughta know that.” He makes a gesture with his claw. Reminiscing. There’s a buck-toothed, gangly weapons dealer following Gabriel Reyes around like a lost puppy in the flicker of his eyes. 

Winston holds up a hand, a diplomatic grimace crossing his encumbered features. “Listen. We got a new budget from the UN, and they’re now aware that we’re losing footing in the US. We need that base established and defended ASAP, or they’ll pull that new budget. So I’m allocating double the resources, extra manpower… and something else. I’m uh, not supposed to say. You’ll get a direct drop.” 

Torbjörn eyes Winston expectantly. 

“Uh, tomorrow, ideally,” recovers the ape. 

Jesse ashes his cigarillo onto the pile of glass at his feet. He stirs from his resting position, lowers his arms, halfheartedly toes a broken chunk of concrete. “We done?” 

“No. McCree, I… uh…” He scratches his head. What’s he trying to express? Condolences? No, he wants to say something, but he can’t. He bites his own tongue, and turns away from the camera. “I don’t really know what to say. I hope that you’ll stay with us.” 

“Y’know,” Jesse folds his arms, frowns on high. “I’m the only one _ain’t_ talkin’ about leavin’.” 

“’Scuze us,” Torbjörn says, voice an outlier somewhere between incredulity and sarcasm. “Ye do have a track record o’ taking off when things go sour, cowboy.” 

“Naw, I have a track record of leavin’ places that no longer align with my ideals, half-pint.” 

“We aren’t here to talk about old Overwatch,” Winston says firmly over the crackling loudspeakers. “We’re all tense, we’re all emotional right now, but let’s step back. Whatever your choice is, McCree, we support you.” 

“Thank ya kindly,” says McCree. 

“You’re welcome.” Winston shuffles, clearly uncomfortable, takes another sip of water. He clacks on his oversized keyboard for a few tense seconds. Finally, he puts his glasses back on, and eyes the camera a little more sharply. Business. “This is the hard part,” he says. “I need details.” 

“You read the dossier on the Harris mission?” Jesse says. “Fella rigged himself with an exploding collar.” 

“Yup, and after that, this briefing file descends into chaos. I have about five different accounts of what happened at the Watchpoint.” 

“Well, I’m sure they’re all true,” says Torbjörn. “There were about six fights going on at once.” 

“Place was lit up like a beehive. Personally, I didn’t see much ‘til the end. I shot around the perimeter and acted as a buffer for the smaller squads. Didn’t see much of Widow or Reaper.” 

“What happened with Gérard?” 

Jesse shifts his weight, sucks on the cigarillo again. “Gabriel fuckin’ ate him. ‘S the only way I can describe it.” 

Winston paws at his chin, curling his long fingers underneath. “Quantum fusion, maybe. I’d kill for a sample of that nano-webbing. I… that stuff…”

Jesse barks a hollow, disingenuous laugh. “You’d probably kill _with_ a sample o’ that shit, Winny. I’d vote for a nano-genocide, you ask me.”

Torbjörn nods in agreement. “It’s responsible for all th’ blood spilled here.” 

Winston shakes his head, looking downcast. The gorilla is deep in thought, in mourning, potentially still in shock. Jesse eyes his fidgeting free hand. It plays with the open frays of a circuit board, twirling strands of copper around his fingers.

“Regardless of what happened at a molecular level, Reaper will undoubtedly be unstable for a time. Talon will probably keep a lock on him.” 

“Widow, too. Whatever….” Jesse halts, takes a deep breath, and forces the word out of his mouth. He is unable to keep his voice from cracking. “Whatever Hanzo said to her had her shaken the fuck up. I ain’t ever seen her that agitated before.” 

Torbjörn finds himself hesitantly agreeing with Jesse again. It’s all over his slow words and gritted teeth. “Even as a Lacroix, the woman was talented at retaining ‘er composure.” 

“So,” Winston folds his hands, chews on nothing. “Widow’s in Numbani, Talon hears about GM, and she bolts.” 

“Whatever fucked up thing they did to her is triggered by the thought of us bein’ here again,” says Jesse. “She loses her damn mind, goes AWOL.” He sounds out the letters. 

“The witch comes here before us and sees Gérard, probably paints th’ T on th’ wall in her stupor, and uses the passages to escape. Talon uses us and Deadlock te see what she still responds te,” says Torbjörn. 

“Talon recaptures her, and Reaper leads me off. Durin’ which, she feeds ‘em intel. They figure the webbin’ has to return to its container at some point, so they stake out the labs. It doesn’t show, and Hanzo and I do, so Irene switches out on us and storms the Watchpoint,” Jesse finishes, almost all in one breath. Liquor bites on the edge of his breath still. 

“Reaper absorbs the nano-webbing—his goal from the beginning. Which means it’s possible he orchestrated Widow’s psychosis,” muses the strike commander. 

“Wouldn’t put it past ‘im,” Jesse mutters. 

“I still don’t understand why they took Chelsea,” says Winston. 

“The only reason I can think of. She had the toxin in her, and couldn’t fight back,” Torbjörn grumbles. “Fucking cowards.” 

“So they’re studyin’ her,” says Jesse. “They’re scared of Reaper, ‘s why he’s been able to get his way with ‘em. They’re seein’ how much his new toys affect regular Joes.” 

“We have to get ‘er back,” says Torbjörn. The frown pulling at the edges of his lips dips down into his beard, past his skin. His entire body is furrowed, fuming. 

“Torb…” Jesse starts. 

“Listen. We’ll do another call tomorrow when you get the stuff I’m sending. We’ll decide on a plan of action then. We don’t have any manpower or resources. I certainly don’t intend to let Talon get away with this, but we also need allocations to repairs,” says Winston. “Uh,” he scratches his head. “I’m sure you already know all that.” 

Torbjörn silently spins his claw. 

“Anyway, I’ve gotta go. I’m… I’m so sorry this turned out this way. If I’d have known, I…” 

“Nobody knew,” says McCree, scoffing and turning his head. “Nothin’ to be sorry for.” He tips his hat, and makes way from the door as Winston keys off. Torbjörn sits silently for a moment before Jesse can hear his boots scuffling in the opposite direction. 

As he leaves, he still stares straight ahead. Tunnel vision. No time for the mauled staircase and broken lighting fixtures. 

Or the solitary arrow holding firm to the ceiling. 

***

Winston’s supply drop arrives at 2:06 PM the next day. Clouds build on the horizon. Everyone at the Watchpoint is desperate for the summer rain. The heat, the loss, and the unending brightness of the sun has drained the staff of their energy. Even those who still have the motivation to work slowly handle their tools. Hammers rise and fall lazily, sloppily. Drills misfire. The pacing has slowed to a crawl. 

Then the sun is momentarily blotted out by a medium-sized aircraft painted in fresh Overwatch colors. It drops into the wide space next to the rubble of the Administrative Complex, and its hatch brushes up the dust around Jesse’s knees. One hand on his hat, twitching husk of a metal hand dangling in the gust, Jesse lets the serape billow around him as the hoverpads finally shut down. 

Torbjörn stands next to Jesse, with Vandergild on his other side. The blonde giant surreptitiously eyes the gunslinger. Maybe a little concerned. Mostly just anxious. He’s thinking, when is this guy gonna start running? He’s thinking, this has gotta be the longest he’s spent outside the hospital room. 

McCree blinks through a momentary dust storm as the aircraft opens, revealing three large shipping containers, four pallets of unmarked boxes, and a slew of shipping and construction personnel. 

Zombielike, Jesse and Torbjörn greet the passengers of the aircraft and help them unload their things. The last remaning supply truck tows the shipping containers while several of Torbjörn’s team with pallet jacks scoop up the rest. As the workers spill out into the afternoon blare, something catches Jesse’s eye in the back of the aircraft. At the end of a line of blue-and-white-suited engineers and construction workers is a flash of neon green. 

Jesse drops his fresh cigarillo and lets his hat fall off his head. He raises his broken hand, then drops it. 

“Well, I suppose this is what Winston meant,” grumbles Torbjörn. Disappointed. Vandergild steps back as Genji steps forward into the sunlight. 

“Hello,” he says. His voice doesn’t say he’s smiling underneath the mask. A rarity. 

Jesse doesn’t say anything. He takes a smaller step back. 

Genji’s visor settles on McCree for a long time. The bustle around them seems to dim, muffle. Soon, all that exists for Jesse is the sickly green glow. Not accusatory. No chagrin or blame or anger. Just grief. That pale green, illuminating the gray of McCree’s alcohol-soaked skin and breath. 

He finally turns and nods at Torbjörn, and extends a hand in Vandergild’s direction. “I am Genji Shimada. It is nice to meet you.” 

Vandergild gulps and settles a sweaty hand onto Genji’s. They shake slow. “Jacob Vandergild.” 

Genji nods. “You are on my brother’s team. He speaks very highly of you.” 

Vandergild flushes, steps back again. He doesn’t know what to do. Jesse looks at his own hands. 

“I would like to see him now,” Genji breathes. 

Anundhatta is waiting for them in the medbay lobby. The building closest to untouched, there is no scattered or broken furniture. No fixtures dangling from exposed wires. No chunks leveled out of walls and floors. Here, it’s almost like nothing happened. 

Genji immediately moves to his brother’s side as they enter the room. Jesse takes the seat next to his, at Hanzo’s feet. 

“I am sorry,” he says finally. 

Jesse places his hat on his lap. “What in sam fuckin’ hell are you apologizin’ for?” 

“I should have been here sooner. I should have pushed Winston to send me. There was not enough here to take on Talon in its entirety.” He reaches up, begins fiddling with Hanzo’s scarf. Jesse bites his lower lip, drawing blood, and feels the moisture build just behind his eyes. 

“Naw,” says Jesse. “There wasn’t. I suppose I skipped the blame game.” 

“This is something I was just not prepared for,” says the younger Shimada. “Master offered to accompany me… but this is something we must do alone.” The scarf is off now. Hanzo’s jet black hair falls around his sharp face. The red rings around his eyes and the sag of his lips. Jesse holds his hand to his stomach. 

“What is?” Jesse says. “If yer about to say…” 

“What does peace mean to you, Jesse?” asks Genji suddenly. He is pressing his fingers into several points of his visor, and a slight _click_ can be heard. The scarf remains in his free hand. 

Jesse puts his finger against his chin. “I guess… my default answer would be… the restraint of its adversaries .” 

“You did not come up with those words yourself,” pries the cyborg. 

“Naw,” says McCree. “Ana says it.” 

“Hm, so peace is merely the result of blocking that which causes its antithesis. Peace is just another form of war. A proper philosophy for someone with a weapon named Peacekeeper.”

“What’s this, all of a sudden?” Jesse says, leaning forward. A shaft of sunlight from the shuttered window crosses his face. His voice remains low, just below a tremble and just above a whisper. 

Genji looks at his brother once more. The visor clicks again, and he removes it, settling it on his lap. He looks straight at Jesse with the unnatural luster of his green eyes. He blinks, twice, the scars dotting his face just under the armor pulling with the motion. A crackling sigh escapes him. 

A flicker shoots through his eyes. A memory. “For my brother, peace means redemption. I do not know if he knows it, but that’s what it is. That,” he settles his hands on the bedside table, “is the burden he shoulders. If you have truly lost hope, and you truly blame yourself, then I contend it is only right for you to shoulder that burden as well.” He takes the scarf, and he takes McCree’s broken prosthetic. 

“What if I ain’t lost hope?” 

“Then that ring on your finger should still say the same thing.” He is wrapping the broken appendage in the scarf, holding the disjointed pinkie in place. 

“What’re you gettin’ at?” Jesse doesn’t take his eyes off the scarf once. 

“Come now, cowboy.” Genji clicks his visor back into place, ties the scarf tight, and stands. “Playing stupid is unbecoming of such a perceptive trickster.” He laughs, bittersweet. “Now leave. I need some alone time with my brother.” 

The gunslinger heeds, scooping his hat up, cigarillo on his lips. He stands in the waiting room for a long time underneath the buzzing lights. Some of Hanzo’s team come to visit, and he wards them off, merely putting up a hand and cocking his head. All but Vandergild turn on their heels and leave, heads bowed to the ground. 

“Genji in there with him?” asks Vandergild. 

Jesse nods. 

“Um, I’ve been thinking, and…” 

Jesse shakes his head. 

“And I know you’re gonna stay. You’re gonna stay because you’re always talking about justice. And you’re gonna fight with me and Flores and Gilbert and everyone. We’ll get them all. Talon, Deadlock—”

Jesse holds up a hand. 

“Whatever you say or do now, I know it’s true. Especially if Genji’s here. He’s gonna help, too. Didn’t you feel that change in the air when he stepped off the supply drop?” 

The gunslinger claps Vandergild on the shoulder. “Partner.” 

The clouds have obscured the sun outside. Finally. He braces himself, folding his broken hand and accompanying scarf into his chest. He squats, low to the ground, and wheezes into it. Loud, unabashed sobs, deep in his throat and spilling forward from his lips like a steaming waterfall. He curls into the scarf, as if he’s pushing it into the center of his being, and as the rain falls, he lurches to his feet. 

Never second best. 

He runs. He sprints like a madman across the compound, leaping through a broken window into the robotics lab. He shouts Torbjörn’s name at the top of his lungs, ringing his own ears and triggering a splitting headache. With his half-functional hand, he types on the last functioning computer, hunting and pecking with an almost panicked fervor. 

The holoscreen buzzes to life with the words “CONTACTING” in a hazy blue. The speakers emit a sound akin to a phone ringing. 

“Come on, big guy. Pick up.” He checks the cracked wall clock. 3:00 PM. The gorilla will be asleep. 

He slams an open palm on the desk. “Pick up, pick up, pick _up_.” 

“What the hell is this?” Torbjörn says, emerging from the second story. 

Finally, the screen buzzes again, and Winston can suddenly be seen, knuckling his eyes and yawning loud. “Whuzzit? McCree?” 

“Listen,” says McCree. He looks right into the ceiling-mounted webcam. His chapped lips force a smile, breaking the skin. Soon he’s grinning into the camera. It’s impossible to tell where the hiccupped, dry-heaved tears end and the splash of fresh rain begins. 

“I got an idea.” He balls his broken fist in his open palm, clutching the scarf with white knuckles.

He turns to Torbjörn. 

“I need a favor.”


	15. Chapter 15

Wednesday, August 1st, 2081. 2:10 PM. McCree lights a cigarillo and shifts his weight from one leg to another under a blazing shaft of sunlight. His eyes, predatory and quick (but saggy with a subtle tinge of purple) pick details out of a crowd of people shuffling into each other at the Grand Junction Street Market. 

The woman with a beige purse stuffed absolutely full of stolen jewelry pulling at her wife’s wrists. 

The omnic shyly bowing their head as a clique of teens mockingly prod at them with outstretched fingers. Two of them duck out due to guilt. 

The middle-aged man whose intense body heat has him sprawled across the aluminum of the bus stop, unaware that has flesh is basically cooking into the metal. 

The street vendor, on her knees, gesturing at the display from which the first woman snatched her winnings. She doesn’t know. 

And the black, studded leather jacket swaying from side to side, resting on broad and confident shoulders. Jesse exhales a deep cloud of spicy smoke and dodges directly into the crowd. 

He swings effortlessly through the throngs of people gathering around various, polished stalls. Carved into a cluster of industrial zones, the area is half-shadowed by the sprawling building to the East--the sky-reaching black obelisk from which Reaper had escaped weeks ago. 

Hat tipped low, down over his head, he makes a diagonal line through the Market, not directly behind the leather jacket, but still well within eyesight. He pauses at a few stalls, stopping at some to be innocuous, some out of genuine curiosity (one has a double-headed carving of a dragon that makes McCree stop in his tracks, thumb through its textures, and nod somberly at the artist). He wears a plain, navy blue button-up with a simple holster for Peacekeeper. The flashbangs are gone. The belt buckle is gone, too, replaced by a simple rectangle. 

Here, short of the blue-trimmed mechanical arm complete with welded-in engagement ring, Jesse McCree looks like an unassuming farmer. Maybe he runs a stall. Maybe he’s buying stock, or supplies. Maybe he’ll go home to a family. A plot, out on the plains. 

A damn dog. 

Jesse aims another plume of smoke high into the sky, and watches it drift over the crowd for a moment. 

The leather jacket makes a sharp turn at the Market’s end, walking directly toward what looks to a be a defunct auto-shop, complete with rusty garage doors hanging off their hinges. Upon a meandering closer look, the shop is still in business—complete with signage. The man that steps inside, with his studded leather jacket, and his shining bald head, briefly turns to look behind him. 

Jesse studies his face, and there’s no mistake. He chews hard on his cigarillo and looks down at a nearby stack of magazines. The door closes, and a car passes by. 

The unlit neon sign reads, MACK’S BODY SHOP. The P hangs off the end, askew by virtue of deteriorating mounts. Jesse tilts his head, involuntarily raising an eyebrow. A body shop? A shitty one, at that? Four well-muscled men sit playing poker around a table inside.

He produces a thin tablet and flips through the dockets displayed on its screen. Remembering. Encoding. Watching for those words that will fit into their ears like keys. When he’s done, he tosses the tablet into a storm drain. He unholsters Peacekeeper and fashions it to the underside of one of the rusted tables. 

McCree snorts, cracks his neck, and walks in. 

***

Monday, July 30th, 2081. 8:00 PM. Hanzo is clammier than ever. White skin, white sheets. It looks like he could fall into the pale at any moment, drift away, lose his outline and sink seamless and dry into the whiteness of the void. 

Jesse stands over him. The shutters are open now, and the moon can be seen hanging lazily in the star-thick sky. Jesse stares at it—frowns, strides over to the curtains, and pulls them shut one by one. A ghost sensation trickles down his opposite bicep, and he peers down at the circular ring of machinery that tops off his stump, prosthetic detached. He crosses the room and rests the back of his one hand against Hanzo’s forehead. Cold. The heart monitor beeps faithfully. 

Into the pale, green light of the monitor, he whispers: “I’m gonna do this. Justice. My way.” He pauses, wipes his eyes. “You don’t gotta come back, sweetheart.” He feels his voice tremble. “I ain’t gonna force ya. But Genji was wrong. I ain’t gonna shoulder your burdens, baby. Way I see it,” he exhales hard, single fist balling up his jeans, “this ain’t no way to get redemption. You ain’t done, and you don’t get to die without finishin’. That’s just plain not like you. So I’m gonna finish this job. It ain’t about redeemin’ you. It’s about the job. Always is, with you. So if I finish, if I wipe her off the face of this Earth and fix ole Jack’s mistakes… find Gabe… well I reckon it’d be a right dick move if ya didn’t open yer fuckin’ eyes, Hanzo.” He stands. “It’s dumb, but it’s all I got. Y’know, I’m a firm believer that the last you got is the best you got.” He opens the door, and closes it softly behind him. 

Murray is standing in the shadowy hallway, a few steps down. Arms clutching across her chest, eyes wide and wet and mouth trembling in a deep frown, she leans back. 

“Aw, jeez. That was s’posed to be private.” 

Murray squeezes her eyes shut. She is run-down. Drained. Too much loss, too soon, and too young. She bites her lip. “Your plan is to just… fight?” 

“Look at me.” Jesse gestures to himself. Brushes fingers against his flash bangs, pausing to gesture with his stump. Rests his hand on the butt of his gun. “’S all I know how to do.” 

“How is that supposed to help?” she sputters, cheeks red. “You said you had an idea.” 

“That I did. An idea on how to find Talon. And wipe ‘em clean.” 

“You said—”

“I said what I said, and I didn’t lie. For once. Either you’re in or you’re out. I ain’t your ‘boss.’ I don’t give orders.” He brushes past her and rounds the corner. 

Hanzo’s door opens as McCree steps out into the night. He surveys the dismantled courtyard, now marked with various construction zones and spray paint symbols. Some scaffolding has been constructed along the edge of the dorm building, but labor is slow and morale is all but extinguished. He eyes the medbay doors. Carla Murray. Extraordinary eye for detail, perceptive, fast and quiet. A sniper that survived two attacks against Widowmaker. He laughs, quiet and low to himself, and lights a cigarillo. 

“’S done,” comes a hazy, grumpy, Swedish voice. 

Familiarity obscured by a haze of exhaustion, Jesse wheels, hand flying to Peacekeeper, to see a bedraggled Torbjörn rubbing his singular eye and yawning into the stuffy air. Draped across his arms is the limp form of McCree’s arm. 

The cigarillo falls to the ground, rolling for a few seconds and coming to a stop against a stray piece of rubble. Jesse’s mouth hangs open, fingers poised with his lighter in hand. 

The dim light of the fluorescent lamp highlights the deep blue of the trim. In place of the skull is a sapphire dragon, rearing its ferocious head into the fist—subtle and, when inspected, intricate and elegant. Finally, at the new, fully articulated fingers, is the engagement ring, fused to the ring finger and simply glowing under the lamp. 

“I told Flores ye only asked fer the ring. Weird little bastard insisted on this.” 

Jesse blinks back a sudden shock of moisture, and drags his fingers along the surface. “Torb, I dunno what to say. Thank you.” 

“Shaddup and take it t’ the bot,” Torbjörn gestures impatiently with it. 

Jesse barks a short laugh and snatches it out of his grasp. 

As he wheels to get it affixed, Torbjörn grumbles once more. “How d’you expect that team te fight Talon on _their_ turf? Couldn’t do it on ours.” 

Jesse smirks, licking his lips. “Well, that’s why I said I’m goin’ off book. Cuz we’re not gonna fight ‘em.” 

Torbjörn tilts his head to the side. 

Jesse taps the ring absently. “Deadlock is.” 

***

Tuesday, July 31st, 2081. 2:17 PM. Jesse gently pushes a stool over with the heel of his foot, letting it clatter to the dusty black marble floor. On the lounge side of Irene’s abandoned bar, the red carpeting is completely barren. The bar is empty, some bottles tossed askew, lights flickering on and off. Upturned tables lie in obstacle directly in Jesse’s path as he heads toward the back room. Red cushions detailed with splendid scenes of gold thread—now faded and covered with dust—lie directly in front of the black door labeled V.I.P. in red. Is it red? McCree covers his left eye. The lettering is not red—it’s gold. He lets the prosthetic fall to his side and opens his eye, letting the hot red tone wash over the reflective paint. 

Outside, the sun invades in dusty shafts of light and the occasional flash of a passing car encompasses the vacant, scattered bits of machinery that the vacant bar once relied on. Jesse coughs lightly—it echoes. He approaches the door. 

McCree ends up peeling the door panel back and snapping the deadbolt in two in order to gain access. Lit cigarillo dangling from the corner of his mouth, he steps into the empty room. Mouth twisting into a slow grimace, Jesse frowns at the piles of syringes scattered variably across the floor of the room. He sniffs—the pallid stench of unrested, wet flesh strikes his nostrils. Hand resting on Peacekeeper’s butt, he moves through the space. 

He blinks twice—once clearing away any bluster, and the second turns his vision gray. 

The humming is familiar, and almost welcome, and it softens the tense and acrid atmosphere of the room. It vibrates in his ears and makes his face a little numb. He twitches his nose. 

Targets. 

Two items in the room light up in dazzling red. 

One of them is a discarded tablet. Upon inspection, its screen is destroyed. McCree collects the memory card and stows it in his back pocket. 

The red of the tablet fades to magenta, and settles into the grayscale with the rest of the room. His face is totally numb now, and the buzz is almost deafening. He shudders, but presses on.

The second item is a small, white, rectangular piece of paper flat against the ground, poking out between the lumpiness of the long-deflated cushions. McCree snakes it out with two of his fingers, grinding the cigarillo between his teeth. He sniffles once, and tucks the card away in his back pocket.

***

Wednesday, August 1st, 2081. 5:13 PM. Before Jesse can even open his eyes, a frigid storm of fast fingers pours over the back of his head. The ice water runs down his clothes, soaking him, leaving him gasping and trembling with constricted blood vessels and bulging eyes. Reflexes tell him to claw at his throat, gasp for air, but his hands are bound. Vision blurry, sweating with discomfort even while drenched, he coughs hoarsely into dry air. It is still here, and stuffy. The freezing liquid perches and soaks into the ropes binding his hands. His feet are tied to the sagging, rusted chair. The walls are lined with shelves and the overhead lamp is a low yellow. Dim. No windows. An offset of the garage, custom-built well after the construction of the garage itself. 

Sweat gathers on the forehead of the big, brown-skinned man in front of him. Track marks pock the skin on his arms. He’s new. His eyes move too much. His posture is stiff, alert, concerned. He is toeing a familiar line. 

“Fucker came waltzing in here with no weapons and a stupid smile on ‘is face,” says a vaguely feminine voice behind Jesse. 

“Goddamn,” says a man’s voice. A familiar man’s voice. Something bedraggled and rough on the edges of Jesse’s ears. The man in the leather jacket. The beacon of the Grand Junction market, the territory boss, and the first man Jesse ever shot. “God. Damn.” The man’s voice is anything but smooth, and by the lilt and cadence of his coughing, frustrated laughter, clearly put off. 

But then he laughs a little quieter, and little softer. Maybe even bordering on amicable. He has lost direction and focus in his old age. A combination of drugs, violence, an exhaust fumes lingers on the edges of his words. He cannot decide on a mood. 

He’ll be easy. 

“Jesse _fuckin’_ McCree.” The leather jacket swings into the gunslinger’s view, the man leaning with his hands on his knees, eyes inches away from Jesse’s. “How long ‘s it been?” He’s twirling a switchblade nonchalantly in his hand. 

Connections: new guy’s been punished before. He eyes the switchblade and gulps visibly. The woman coughs uncomfortably; she wants to leave. Is she new, too? No. Jesse McCree warrants more than two dodgy-eyed bedwetters. She’s up to something. 

“I reckon about twenty-two years, prob’ly just on the dot. You know how life is,” says Jesse after he recovers from his choking fit and regains his ability to take a full breath. His heart still races, but they don’t have to know that yet. 

The leather jacket chortles unevenly. He might be doped up, or drunk. It’s hard to tell anymore. He probably doesn’t even know. His eyes focus on Jesse’s still, however, and the switchblade has stilled in his hand. He scrapes it along Jesse’s prosthetic. 

“How’d this happen? Mama find out you like boys?” He laughs, looks toward new guy for approval. New guy forces a small simper. 

Jesse grins. “Damn, Butch, is it the old age?” 

Butch removes his leather jacket, folds it up. “Waddyou mean?” 

The gunslinger looks up toward the ceiling. Did they drug him, or knock him out? He tries to crane his head back and feels a sharp sting of pain down his spine. Physical. New guy socked him in the back of the head. 

“I mean back in the day, you could talk the piss out of a Catholic priest. You always go for low hangin’ fruit these days, or is yer back feelin’ sore from the weather?” 

Butch’s face falls. He places the leather jacket into new guy’s outstretched hand and shoots a glance at the woman. Jesse hears movement behind him. “Y’know boy, you don’t have no bounty on your head anymore. What’s keeping me from killing you right here?” 

“Nothin’, I figure. But you’da done it already if you were gonna. That why Lady Elizabeth over there’s diggin’ through the wares?” He jerks his head in the woman’s general direction. “You gonna try and torture me?” 

Butch smirks. “Them fairies in Europe teach you how to do that?” 

Jesse frowns. “Naw, I could always smell your horse shit from miles away, Butch.” 

The woman finally steps into Jesse’s view. She is rotund, pale, with sunken eyes and what appears to be a burlap sack tied around her waist. In her fingers she brandishes a few nails and in her other hand, a ball-peen hammer. 

“Now I know I’m not the biggest advocate for subtlety, ma’am, but d’you think you could tone down the Georgia Peach glower? I _shot_ him—” he gestures with a throw of his head to Butch, “—and you’re still managin’ to be the least hospitable person here.” 

“Did you come here to be a fuckin’ prick, or what?” says the woman. She has a twang, but not like Jesse’s. Oklahoma? Must be Oklahoma. 

“That is a great question, Gretch.” Butch flips his switchblade around his fingers once more. New guy almost visibly winces. “Why in all of God’s green holy _fuck_ did you come strolling into my shop like you owned the place?” 

“I wanted to see an old friend,” Jesse shoots. 

Butch rolls his eyes. “The question of your long-waited death,” he says, flashing a menacing grimace. “I suppose you could say I wanna…” he trails off and stands. He crosses the room in one thick step, and once more puts his face inches away from Jesse’s. “Take my time.” He stands up straight. “Enough with the bullshit. Gretchen.” He gestures again. 

Gretchen takes one of the nails and positions it just up against Jesse’s fingertip. She’s excited. That’s what it was before; she was impatient, not bored. New guy looks like he wants to chew his nails. Butch’s eyes are wild; he’s drunk on vengeance. And also probably homemade whisky. 

Perfect timing. 

She raises the hammer. 

“Archie Sandalwater.” Jesse says. Gretchen hesitates. Butch begins grinding his teeth, and balls up his fists. 

“What was that, pole-smoker?” he says. A dangerous lilt hangs off the edge of his voice—he stops breathing when he stops speaking. 

Rope. “Archie Sandalwater. Maya Burton. Autumn Billie. Kendrick McIntyre.” Knot.

“Where did you get those names?” Gritted teeth. Dirty nails digging into a clammy palm. 

Gretchen hesitates further, almost lowering her hammer. She’s been paused long enough that the rolls on her arm begin to weigh her down. She drops before she gets too tired. 

“I didn’t say stop, Gretch.” Butch almost frantically lights a cigarette. 

Jesse laughs, smooth and booming. It’s misplaced, though. It’s too warm. This isn’t an intimidating laugh, it’s a genuinely entertained one. It’s the kind of laugh that makes Hanzo laugh. “They went missin’ off the 50 couple weeks back. Recovered a couple of bodies. More than I listed, naturally. One crushed and burned under their bike. Couple with holes blown in the back of their heads.” 

Lasso. 

“Stop.” Butch brings the flat of his switchblade down on Gretchen’s hand, and she lets the hammer fall to the floor. 

“God shittin’ fuck, Butch!” She shouts, spittle landing on Butch’s scarred brow. 

“You know what happened to them.”

“This was easier than I thought,” says Jesse. 

“Talk,” says Butch. “You know what I’ll do if you don’t.” 

“I did it.” 

Butch bites his lower lip. “I was hoping you’d say that.” 

Jesse continues. “Weird little troupe, the police ‘round these parts.”

Butch motions for Gretchen again. “I was gonna have fun with you before.” He goes as far as to _lick_ the dirty knife. “Now I’mma have a _ball._ ”

“One of the things I find weird about ‘em: ever notice how some of ‘em frequent that new bar down on 3rd?” Jesse shrugs. “One o’ those tagged drug dens. Shitty product, but I’m sure yer boys are familiar.” He bites his tongue. Eight years of rust scrape off the edge of his tongue. 

Gretchen places the nail again, rears back the hammer. 

He fights the urge to grit his teeth. “’Nother weird thing about the police ‘round here. Don’t seem too keen on takin’ down that drug den, or listenin’ to my men. Usually. Hopped right up on the chance to blockade a whole highway, though.” 

The hammer comes down on the nail. Jesse can’t keep the scream inside this time. It comes out brusque and short-breathed. He spends the energy to look down at his hand. The nail’s been driven in almost all the way. He can’t bend his finger. His nail has been upended, beads of blood forming around and dripping down the entry site. 

His breath labors, but he steadies, looks back up at Butch, and smiles. “Got right on that call yer shop here might be a Deadlock front. Can’t reuse those old names, boss man. Ain’t that lesson number one?” 

As if on cue, the sound of police lights blazes down the street. 

Butch cranes his head back. “Well. Pack him up. Move him out to Mesa, should be far and enough away—” 

A deafening blast rockets through the evening air outside. New guy bolts to his feet and rushes out of the room at Butch’s jerky signal. “What’d you do?” 

“Got rid of your guards.” Jesse slumps backwards with as much of his weight as he can throw, knocking Gretchen off-balance. Gretchen lets out an airless moan as someone from behind her grapples her by the neck. Butch looks up at her, wide-eyed, as Jesse’s chair tips back and slams into the floor. He looks at up Butch, and smiles big. The gears in the Deadlock veteran’s head churn as the seed he planted grows. 

Mission complete. And above Jesse, true as ever, a man of action molded by his lover’s own hands, Carlson steps into view with a leather garrote stretched between his balled fists. 

Jesse kicks Butch’s feet out from under him, and Carlson catches him by the neck in the garrote. He throws the older man into the meager shelving to the left, sprawling him out in the midst of rusted, empty paint cans. 

Carlson cuts the cord on McCree’s binds, and helps him to his feet. As they turn to leave, Jesse seals the deal while Carlson pockets the mobile police scanner. He yanks a cigarette out of Butch’s pack, puts it to his lips, and seethes: “why the _fuck_ would I barricade myself in with eight plus of yer men?” 

He flips a perfect rectangle of paper onto Butch’s stunned chest. 

The older man attempts to get up, but Jesse and Carlson are already gone, racing out the once locked secret door into the garage, empty. The police have arrived outside, distracted long enough by Carlson’s actions to let Butch escape. 

An unwarranted and unfortunate casualty—Gretchen accidentally sunk a nail into new guy’s neck. He’s dropped to the floor, gurgling, jugular punctured and spilling like an oil truck onto the grated floor of the shed. He watches the life drain from new guy’s eyes. A prop. He was an intimidation technique, too. All old-school Deadlock playbook. Just like the chains on the bikes and the track marks from old world drugs. Crates of stolen weapons, the smell of thirsty, parched earth soaking up innocent blood.

Jesse lights Butch’s nasty, processed cigarette, just to feel something in his lungs. Carlson lurches behind as they make their way back to the disguised supply truck. 

“Command wouldn’t have approved of the way you just let yourself get captured,” he remarks in a deadpan voice. 

“Does no one around here know the meanin’ of the term, ‘off book?’” Jesse throws up his hands in feigned agitation. “We got done what we needed to get done.” 

Carlson kicks a rock, like a dissatisfied child. “And what was that?” 

“Butch gets thinkin’. Ain’t as dumb as he looks.” Jesse gives a noncommittal shrug. “He’ll mount an assault. Police are after ‘im, now, too, which means he’s gotta be quick and loud.” 

“Perfect for phase 2,” mutters the espionage expert. 

Jesse rolls his eyes. “Yup. Tomorrow. You ready?” 

Carlson breathes heavy. “I guess. Why didn’t you just tell him?” 

Jesse laughs, a short and ragged sigh. “Don’t work as well. Tried it lots of times. Nothin’ works violent men into a tusslin’ mood—and this applies especially to Deadlock—quite as well as an old fashioned spot of ‘intuition.’ Men like Butch think they’re clever, and they love a good, clever conflict.” 

“How do you know?” 

Jesse wrinkles his nose. “I am one.” 

Carlson looks at the other man, one eyebrow raised. “I suppose they’re not _all_ bloodthirsty cretins.” 

He lets out another short, jerky laugh. “Don’t be so sure.” 

The two trade stories in the cramped van until about 3 AM. Jesse starts to let go of consciousness as the moon gleams in at a skewed angle across the back of the van. Jesse tells him the story of Hanzo’s dragons shredding the entire reactor system of a rogue omnium in Estonia the previous year. He tells him almost everything about that day—the way the trees hung low under the pressure of the water in the air. The storm clouds that seemed to contrast the sticky heat. The bothersome swarm of insects that chased Hanzo out of a shady clearing. 

He leaves out their first kiss. 

Carlson tells him stories about boot camp, embarrassing stories about the stoic Gilbert. The time the hulking, dark-skinned man slipped on a stray puddle of water in the boot camp showers, crashing into the lockers and taking someone else’s entire wardrobe with him onto the wet floor. How everyone still laughs about the conveniently fallen jockstraps strewn across his bare chest. How he helped Gilbert to his feet and chastised him for jogging in the locker room. 

The espionage expert, the man whose job description is to fuck with the rules, seems to like the rules a lot. 

3AM finally comes. Carlson, in the backseat, shuffles to gather his belongings. 

“Don’t work yerself away,” says Jesse. “Ya got Murray, too.” 

“Yup,” says Carlson, slamming the door closed. 

Jesse lights a cigarillo with a stunted, defeated sigh. Last one. 

***

Thursday, August 2nd, 2081. 9:13 AM. Jesse sputters awake when his comm starts to furiously vibrate. He’s snoozed the alarm twice, and after fumbling around for a cigarillo he quickly remembers isn’t there, he throws his hat back on his head and bumbles out the back of the innocuous truck. He turns on his handset, eyes adjusting to the digital screen in the midst of the sunlight in the dying summer. Everyone is in position. 

He climbs into the passenger seat of the truck, the police scanner left on the dash. Grabbing it and switching through the channels, McCree quickly finds what he’s looking for. 

A static, crackly voice says, “we got heavy mobilization from known Deadlock hideouts. All patrols, be on guard.” 

Jesse sighs. No sign of Talon interference on that one. He drives down the road, hefting the police scanner to his ear. 

Another voice says, “Market Street, do you copy?” 

“Copy. Their ringleader got away last night, I am en route to last known physical location,” 

Jesse smiles. 

“Eschew that command, officer. Relay back to Point F.” 

There it is. Jesse’s smile cracks into a wide grin, and he fumbles with his phone while driving with his knees. He dials Murray on a burner phone 

“Present,” she squeaks from the earpiece. 

“Find ‘Point F.’ Final transmission.” He hangs up. Dials Carlson’s burner. 

“Okay,” he says, audibly exhausted. 

“Go for it,” says the gunslinger. “Maybe get some coffee on the way. Final transmission.” Click. 

He dials once more. The line rings for a long while before the line picks up. “Follow up on Murray. Mobilize yours. Final transmission.” 

“Check,” murmurs the solemn voice of Gilbert. The younger man hangs up first. Jesse rounds the corner and approaches the street he’d been parked on all night. A cruiser is waiting at the stoplight. 

He makes a hard right, resulting in a mild case of whiplash, but the cop doesn’t seem alerted. 

Standing in front of Mack’s Body Shop are an entire platoon of police forces. Jesse swerves down an alley to avoid them. He smoothly taps buttons on the burner one more time while dodging in and out of traffic. 

“Check,” says Flores. 

“21st and Market,” Jesse says before hanging up. This time, he tosses the burner out the window. It clatters into pieces on the road. 

He eases out onto the main street from the alley. Down on the corner, exactly where he’s supposed to be, is the staunch figure of Flores, cigarette hanging out his mouth while he absently looks at a fake phone. 

Without looking, Flores swings effortlessly into the passenger seat as McCree slowly panders by. He has three backpacks daisy-chainged together with carabiners, which he hefts over the top of his seat. The three bulging canvases clatter to the floor and slide loudly around. 

“You got everything?” says McCree. 

Flores shoots him a sultry look and smiles at the corner of his mouth. 

McCree eyes him slyly. “Heard Vandergild likes those ole Michael Bay movies,” he says with an air of detached restriction. 

Flores swallows visibly. “What the fuck,” he whispers. 

“Just sayin’. They say the best way to a m—” Flores cranks the radio—playing some obnoxious electronic dissonance—up loud enough to drown out the rest of the sentence. Jesse steals a glance, and the other man’s tight, reddened lips are pursed around his cigarette in a way that makes him look like a pouting child. 

A black muscle car with a sloppy, white skull painted on it pulls into the road behind them. 

“They’re trailing us,” murmurs Flores, offering McCree a cigarette. 

Jesse indulges as he rounds a sharp corner, watching the cop do the same in his periphery. 

“Murray says the cops are chasing Deadlock West,” Flores murmurs, eyes locked on the passenger side mirror. 

Traffic has thinned as Jesse ramps up onto the I-70 Hyperway toward Fruita. The gangster has slowed, but not entirely abandoned pursuit. He weaves and dodges in between cars, following about two behind. McCree can see the aggressive glint in his sunglasses, the way he tilts his head and closes fingers loosely around the steering wheel. Eyes on the back of his own head. Flores’, too. A scout. McCree looks over at Flores: “Need a clear shot.” 

Flores puts his finger up to his chin, and looks toward the back of the van. He unbuckles his seatbelt and scrambles spiderlike into the back. He counts over the roar of the road, “three, two…,” and elbows open the back of the van just as McCree levels Peacekeeper down the length of the vehicle, straight down the highway, and right at the patrolman’s head as he changes lanes. 

A blink. Time stops. The color drains from the world as if through a straw, leaving behind the bright, burning outline of the patrolman’s head. The buzz fades in, pitch rising and straddling his eardrums like fireplace pokers. Jesse’s hands operate accordingly, separate from the perfect movements of his foot on the pedal, and even from each other as one corrects the steering of the vehicle and the other pulls the trigger. 

His eyes don’t linger, and a moment later he’s refocused on the road. Flores closes the van doors immediately after the shot is fired. 

The muscle car sways, leans, and finally swerves off the road, plummeting into a nearby ditch with a loud, metal _crack_. 

“Shit.” Flores climbs into his seat, clammy-faced. “How do you do that?” 

McCree shrugs, flicking the butt of the cigarette out the window. “How’s a horse buck? ‘S the way my body works.” 

“No shit?” Flores raises an eyebrow. “I thought you were like, cursed by a witch or something.” 

McCree barks a sinister laugh, validated by Flores’ shallow discomfort in the seat next to him. “Close enough as the bird flies.” 

Grand Junction has passed them by, and the high desert surrounds them, peaked by the trinity of green, mountainous fingers reaching up into a placid blue sky marred by streaks of bright sunlight. It’s nearly 11 now, as McCree looks up at the blazing ball in the sky, and the canyon lingers on the horizon. Flores leans against the window, eyes sullen only when he thinks nobody’s looking. Something on the forefront of his mind, always. Something he hasn’t learned to put away yet; either to stuff at the bottom of a bottle or internalize until he bursts. Or just stows it below his feet, either hoping to get taller or hoping the earth will buckle beneath him, and he’ll be buried alive. Like Hanzo. Guilt. 

"They could be hiding anywhere in the wilderness,” breathes the demolitions expert acutely, as if he sensed Jesse reading into him like a stack of books with cracked spines.

“West,” says Jesse. “McInnis. Lots of places to hide—there’s an abandoned Omnium on th’ floor.” 

Flores gets a call on the satellite phone in his bag. He pulls it out, answers wordlessly, and merely listens to the light squeak on the other end of the line. He hangs up and stows the phone. “It’ll take Vandergild’s team about forty-five extra minutes to get to back side of the canyon. They’ll be at an access point hopefully Talon won’t be looking at, but we don’t know how close they’ll be versus us.” 

“’S what good ole Buck’s for. If anyone can rustle a herd like a flock of stray ducks, it’d be him.” 

“So we wait?” 

“Ayup.” 

“Fuck,” says Flores as McCree begins to pull off onto a ramp. “That was my last stoge.” 

Jesse pulls onto a dirt road near Fruita that goes straight into unkempt thicket. Flores grips his seat in alarmed manner when it appears they’ve gone completely off-road, but then the vegetation thins out. After what seems like miles of dirt road and thick, scraggly foliage, they come to a rickety bridge crossing the Colorado River. Flores checks in with Vandergild via satellite phone as they cross it. 

The conversation is short, and one-sided. Jesse can hear the guttural muttering of the gruff man on the other line, but can’t make out what he’s saying. 

“This is our last chance to say yer piece before this goes down. Can’t communicate in there,” says the gunslinger. “Everyone know what they gotta do?” 

Flores ditches the phone into the river as soon as the conversation is over. 

McCree sighs again into the hot air as the road slowly becomes more cracked and dull. Finally, it gives way to rough sand. McCree stows the van behind a shadowy rock formation dense with trees, reloads Peacekeeper, and strolls out into the hot sun while Flores struggles with some baggage he’d left in the van before the operation. 

A crow takes off in the distance. Climate change has ravaged this area even in the years McCree was absent. New formations of cracks created by lack of moisture have caused the walls of the canyon to crumble in places. As McCree stands over it, but just to the side of another rock formation, he sees that landslides have decimated the once towering walls of sediment that loomed over the deepest parts of the canyon. Dotted with scraggly juniper, a site straight out of New Mexico, the bottom of the canyon offers countless places to hide. 

Luckily, much of the landmass still retains its shape, and, faithfully, a small cluster of buildings carved into a cave system is amass with red spots of activity.

“There,” McCree points. Flores squints. 

“Those caves?” 

“Blown in. Probably set up with self-affixing sheet metal like the kind Torb used to patch the walls.” 

“How can you tell?” 

McCree points out the black powder, and takes in Flores’ bewildered countenance. 

“You can see that from here,” the younger man deadpans. 

“Mhm,” chews McCree absently. He ducks down into the rock formation. “Good a place as any.” 

“For what?” says Flores, squatting. “We can’t just sit here.” 

McCree yawns, and tips his hat over his head. He stretches and leans his head back over crossed arms. “You take first watch.” 

***

The heel of a combat boot presses into Jesse’s hip, firm but polite. He stirs into consciousness from a blank but dulled and feverish dream. Jesse rests a trembling hand over his heart and uses his prosthetic to prop himself up on numb legs. The sun has long reached its crux and has begun to decant down toward the horizon, and there is a stirring of activity near the caves. Jesse ditches the hat behind a rock—a cheap knockoff of his Stetson was uncomfortable and unsightly anyway. 

A bright flash sweeps into the air, then fades, followed by prominent gunfire and a blistering cloud of dust. 

“Go,” says McCree, scrambling down the cliff face via a thin and worn path. Footing is uneven—Flores falls twice and McCree has to yank him up with a metal hand. The gunfire continues as the duo reach the bottom of the cliff face and sprint down the bottom of the canyon toward the cluster of holes. 

They separate once they see people. Flores dodges into the thicket of parched trees to the left and McCree continues to hug the wall of the canyon, using various formations and small plateaus as cover. 

The Deadlock bikes come into view as shiny, black insects and then their details become clear. Figures diving down from a scaffolding installed in the mouth of one of the caves. As he draws closer, the view sharpens. He was mistaken. These weren’t blown into the side of the mountain. They were forcefully expanded—Jesse spits at the ground once he sees evidence of ancient dwellings resting deep in the caves. 

He looks in the direction Flores took off. A vanguard of figures is scrambling up over the mountains—a squint and a little eye magic reveals the glint of Murray’s rifle. Jesse sighs, sits back against a rock. He looks up at the blaring sun, tuning his hearing into the shouts and brief spatterings of gunfire occurring a few yards away. He buries his face in his hands, slaps his cheeks, digs his shoulders into the heated rock. One, two… 

The sinister peal of the rifle cuts the atmosphere in half. Jesse peeks over the rock formation, and sees a cloud of dust has erupted from Murray’s position. He sucks in a sharp breath, looks toward the compound, and blinks twice. 

Immediately in hot-blooded red, a lone vehicle hovers on a scraggly road that goes almost directly up the side the canyon. Just small enough for one car, and crumbling away at places, it is—from the vantage point of the Omnium—invisible. The car begins to patter toward the pathway, and the ringing buzz is so loud it almost feels like the Devil himself is screaming in Jesse’s ears. He blinks away the sensation and curses under his breath. 

McCree scrambles to his feet and dashes along the canyon wall, squeezing himself in between every rock crevice he can fit into. A new stippling of gunfire rips out from the other side of the canyon; Vandergild’s team has made contact. Jesse drops into a divot just behind one of the defunct Omnium’s buildings. The screech of tires against asphalt combined with the ceaseless rumble of motorcycles confirms Deadlock’s second wave is currently fighting the crooked police, accompanied by a large _boom_ and the sound of glass shattering. 

Jesse remains in the shadows, low almost to a crawl, in the canyon’s divot. Another rifle bark smacks through the air, and Jesse whips his head to see a second cloud of dust erupt in Murray’s last known location. She is here, and, judging by the rapidity of her shots, she is flustered. His breathing becomes shallow, and he clutches the rim of the ditch as he ducks below as a nearby door is breached. The sound of bodies hitting the dirt floor of the canyon, the _smack_ of blunt-force weapons against the bases of skulls, echoes about the back of the cave. 

Jesse dares a peek just over the rim of the ditch. Two Talon soldiers have victoriously baton-bashed three Deadlock gangsters to death just outside the compound’s doors. Jesse heaves himself over the ditch’s edge just as their backs are turned. 

As they near the door, Jesse dashes up behind one and grabs him by the back of the skull with his metal hand. With a sickening deluge of crackling noises, the man’s body goes limp his fingers. The other Talon agent turns and reaches for his gun, but McCree forcefully slams the ball of his foot into the man’s shin, buckling his leg. With a solid, tensile grip of his prosthetic, Jesse snaps his neck. 

The gunslinger is busy fishing the keycards out of their pockets as the small, black vehicle begins to meander up the canyon wall. Jesse is closer now; he gives Dead-Eye another try. 

There is nothing of importance in the car—save a photo cutout of Chelsea Begay on the windshield. 

Jesse claws at his breastplate. 

Two things: the car was a distraction, and Irene guessed correctly how the Dead-Eye functions. Maybe Gabe told her. Either way, it means Chelsea isn’t anywhere near here. It means Irene left with her. 

He slams his back against the dirty omnium wall and breathes deep once more, eyes closed for just a hair of a second. 

Another peal of the rifle prompts Jesse to look around the corner where Murray’s team would likely be positioned—on the other side of the complex in the cliff-like rock formations at which Widow was currently firing. 

Vandergild should come out any time now. Jesse surmises Widow’s vague location on the rooftops and dashes inside the building. 

The interior of the place, in some spots, isn’t any better off than the Watchpoint. Dust litters the floors, debris cracks under Jesse’s heavy bootfalls as he trudges up the stairs, growing out of breath, clutching the railing and sweeping the long-struck tendrils of wet hair from his face. Another rifle shot occurs, and from a window Jesse can see Vandergild charging up the cliff side in full view of Widow. A ruthless, dangerous plan. Vandergild’s dissociation with the value of his own life just meant he had more in common with Jesse than physical appearance. 

And with a dyed-brown beard, hair slicked under a genuine Stetson, red serape billowing behind him in the high desert wind, he was an actual doppelganger of the gunslinger. 

From a rifle scope, you couldn’t tell the difference. 

***

The sun is lower on the horizon now. Draped in a desolate, burning sienna, the canyon’s walls seem to smolder with anticipation. Drifting in on a high wind is the final blast of evening heat, before the summer night descends with maddening cold. Wind ruffles the hair of those standing in the open, warm fingers against bruised scalps. 

Carla Murray nurses an open shoulder wound. She claims to have felt a moment of clamminess before Widow struck that enabled her to roll partially out of the way. She suffers from a shattered shoulder blade. 

Anundhatta Roi treats Murray and the others of their wounds. 

Warren Vandergild sits glumly beside a brim-damaged Stetson upon neatly folded serape. Echoing in his mind are the whisky-licked words of a Southern gunslinger: “you’ll wish ya just got shot in the head if you fuck up my hat.” 

Kieran Gilbert, Joseph Christen, and Roger Carlson all look on tiredly as Carlos Flores desperately asks stray EMTs for a spare cigarette to no avail. 

Neither Jesse McCree nor Amélie Lacroix have left the disabled omnium in over an hour. 

Despite the relief glistening on their faces as sweat-turned-grime from the dusty canyon walls, they are waiting. Shadows stretch off long-drawn mouths, sunken-in faces. People shiver. Even Anundhatta seems to be on edge, hovering between patients like a concerned parent. 

“Plan went off without a hitch, yeah?” says Murray, muted and squeaky. Her eyes are glossy. 

Flores laughs, a little too heavy-handed. “Fuck. I think all things considered, we did okay. Chelsea could be anywhere, Reaper’s a crazy death cloud, and Talon doesn’t seem to care too much about cutting off this particular appendage. But we did our jobs.” 

“Speak for yourself,” Vandergild mutters miserably. He looks over to the hat. “I think I’m gonna have to learn to live with fake teeth.” 

Carlson chuckles. “What? No, McCree will just cry and mope for a few days.” 

“I got that impression,” says Christen. “That he was a little more bark than bite.” 

“I think he’s got plenty of bite, too,” says Vandergild, nodding toward the ghostly silent building. 

“He is a master tactician, to be sure,” says Anundhatta. 

“Second Dad had a good idea,” slurs Murray. She eases one palm up to the sky, then drops it limp toward the dirty ground. 

“That will be the painkiller,” murmurs the head medic. They nod to Christen, who gets to his feet and starts making sure Murray stays propped up. 

“We should get food on the way back,” says Vandergild in an absent deadpan. “Ribs.” 

“I’m vegan,” slurs Murray. 

“Oh, but you’re not.” Flores brushes a stray hair out of Murray’s face. “I want breakfast food.” 

“No, but Vegan Thai actually sounds crazy good though,” says Carlson. 

“Hipster,” says Gilbert shortly. “Burgers.” 

“Shawarma, like from that old Marvel movie.” 

“How about we eat an actual mouthful of bees instead?” 

“I would, but I’m veeeegan.” 

“I’m sticking with ribs, and I’m driving, sorry.” 

“Sorry not sorry I will tuck and roll in front of the nearest middle-eastern place.” 

“Can—”

A resounding _boom_ of solitary gunfire ripples from the top of the omnium. Breaths hushed, everyone falls into a reactive, fight-or-flight silence. 

A hard-earned cigarette drops from a pair of peach-fuzzed, brown lips. 

***

He’d kicked her legs out from under her before she even saw him coming. Flores’ series of crippling explosions blocking off all but one of the exits, coupled with the mistaking of a secondary operative for McCree, and the fanfare of chaotic gunfire between crooked police, honest police, Deadlock, and Talon all added up to the one mistake she could possibly make—having too much to kill. The blazing square of paper that must have clouded every one of her senses while it was attached to a living person didn’t help, either. As she wasted time picking off the bald one in the leather jacket, the real gunslinger, the magic-eyed man from her long-forgotten past, came up behind her, and knocked the breath out of her. 

She struggled, too—but she’d let him live too many times. That bumbling heap of a man, talking and smirking his way through life, _he_ was the one that got her in the end. He knew from all that loss to go for her grappling hook. He crushed it with his brutish metal hand as she struggled to retain oxygen. He even kicked her venom mine away when she loosed it from her wild fingertips. 

Now, with her hands tied behind her back, she looks as the gunslinger paces in front of her, Peacekeeper aloft in his tight-gripping fingers. They are on the roof, and the hot air was almost too much for her cracked lips to bear. It began to sting. 

“Seems weird how we can all make such stupid—” a sick sneer wretches across the gunslinger’s face as he rumbles, “—mistakes even as masters of the battlefield.” 

“Poetic nonsense. You dressed your own man up in a chicken costume to get me. Pathetic.” A snarl whips off every one of Widowmaker’s syllables. 

Jesse wags a finger, sneer curling up into a wicked coyote grin. “But it worked.” 

In a symbolic show, Jesse kicks Widowmaker’s unique rifle off the edge of the building. It clatters into the dirt below, prompting a raucous cheer from the Overwatch team. 

“Are you going to kill me?” says Widowmaker. 

Jesse scratches his chin, checks Peacekeeper. “Yes.” 

Widowmaker laughs, cheap and idle, into the blustering air. “Revenge? Redemption? Do you think you are doing me a _favor_ , even?” 

It’s Jesse’s turn to laugh. Deep, genuine, but hollow. Fire licking at the edge of every sinister bark. And it’s dry, too. He drops one red, shining eye onto her face from where he is standing. 

“Naw.” He drops down to a squat and shuffles up close to her. He presses the hot barrel of Peacekeeper up against her chin. 

“Naw. This is justice. And it ain’t gonna dispense itself.” 

_Draw_.


	16. Chapter 16

Hanzo is sitting at a large kotatsu, surrounded by extended family. His father sits across from him, contemplation etched into the deep-wrought features of his face. Something hangs just above his head, some invisible and ephemeral gasp of emotion he just won’t let go. It’s in his eyes and his fingers—steady but hesitant. He brings the cup of tea up to his lips, swallows, and sets it down on the table. The tea cup doesn’t make that pleasant, muted sound when it touches the wood. In fact, it doesn’t make any sound. Nothing does. 

His mother sits next to his father, she is absently staring into nothingness. This must be the later years, when the dementia that seized her often put her into catatonia. A stray wind from the window, open despite the freezing winter lying just outside, brushes her hair into her face. She does nothing about it. 

His father is speaking now. Soundless syllables drop from his mouth like missing diamonds. No, not like diamonds. The words _are_ diamonds. They are spilling out of his mouth en masse, twinkling in the bright light of the lantern. They hit the table silently, spilling into and over the edge of his teacup. They’re piling up, up, higher… and now they’re covering his face. 

Hanzo looks at his hands. They are tiny, and soft—yet to be worked into sinewy ache by the pull of a bowstring. But they’re crimson, and dripping, and as he looks up, so are the diamonds. His mother is gone now, her clothes just sitting on the ground askew. Genji is nowhere to be found in the throngs of gatherers at and around the table. For some of their faces, memory fails him. 

The diamonds reach well over the top of his father’s head now, and in a panic, Hanzo pushes the diamonds out of the way. As he touches them, they splinter and cut his hands. On the other side of the pile of gems, his father’s clothes lie empty, strewn across the tatami as if he’d just vanished into nothing. 

The walls are gone now, and so is the palace. Hanzo looks around, bloody diamonds digging into his palm. It is so, so cold, and his body feels so, so light. But the sun is beating down so sharply and the sand stings his toes. 

High desert. He digs his heel into the sand, looks at the sediment walling his view down to a vast, open field of dirt. The cold numbs the surface area of his skin, tightening it, but he moves onward. His fingers are numb, and his knees are numb, and his face is pins and needles, and inside it’s as if someone opened a floodgate and then destroyed the operative switch. Frozen tears run down his face as he shivers through the open air.

The wall of sediment fades away as he walks, revealing a vast ocean of sand with nothing in it. The sky is a blue that seems to stare back at him, and he can _feel_ the heat in the air, it just won’t touch him. Every time he struggles forward for a hot breeze or some semblance of warmth, it’s whisked away into the daylight, spiraling visibly away from him, leaving him shivering and desolate in the sand. 

He was wrong. There is something in this sea of particulates. A big, blue something is present on the horizon. Fueled by a disparate sense of hope and loss, Hanzo dashes forward—there’s nothing else. Like a torrent, the cold washes over him in waves now, numbing his whole body in sectors. He drops, falls face first into the sand multiple times, and every time is like getting shot with a thousand bullets. It is still silent, and he opens his mouth to shout every time, but nothing comes out. He can feel the hoarse rattle in his throat, feel the air forced between his teeth, but hears nothing. 

Hanzo walks toward the blue object for what seems like hours, and it never seems to get closer. Once, in a stray moment looking down at his blistered feet, arms hugging at his sides, breathy shaky and eyes flippant, he looks back up to see the object just a few feet in front of him. It is so much bigger than he anticipated. 

A massive mountain stretches up endlessly into the sky above him. The dirt is so cold to the touch, and blue—what is this material? He looks down at the diamonds still in his hand, and sighs. Of course. How could he forget what ice looks like? It peaks high above, very nearly obscuring the torturous sun, sand running down its façade like thousands of webbed waterfalls, ingrained dirt mingling with unmelting ice.

The glacier is moving, Hanzo realizes after a few sparse moments of dead-eyed appreciation. The sand shifts under its massive presence, and Hanzo struggles to take hold of the object, but a sinister rumble prompts him to tear his hand away in panic. A crack forms where he touched the glacier, and it begins to spread. Hanzo stumbles backwards and falls into the freezing sand, blinded by the sun. 

The glacier disintegrates. From the point of contact, it splinters and erupts with ice and water and falls down around Hanzo in massive, menacing chunks. He scrambles to get out of the way but his outstretched hands only grasp at shifting sand. Before long, the immediate area is lousy with gleaming boulders nestled into their impact craters. Bewildered, Hanzo stands up and finds that the glacier has become nothing but rubble. What was once mysterious, paradoxical, and majestic now gathers in loose chunks at his feet. 

Hanzo stays here for a long time. Standing, staring into the blinding maw of the sun whose heat radiates _around_ him but not through him, leaving him struggling to keep warm. His limbs feel as though they’re made of rubber now, and the aching sensations spread across his body in serrated jaws of cold steel. 

After a while—an unmarked and unperceived amount of time to Hanzo, maybe even centuries—voices begin to lilt in on the wind. They are the only things Hanzo can hear in the infinite silence. He can’t comprehend them, but he knows who they belong to. He knows their names. Slowly, they focus in his mind. Genji, scarred face behind a metal helmet. Anundhatta, calm and calculated if not cold and distant. There’s another-soft, lilting, feminine, a twinge of an accent.

Jesse. Voice like the rush of a stampede. It puts his pulse in his ears. 

A cascade of gold powder, finer than sand, begins to rain down from an unseen point in the sky, gracefully falling like silk onto the sand in front of him. Hanzo reaches towards it, feels the fountain of fine, iridescent gold between his fingertips. The downpour has fallen onto a large piece of debris, and seems to form a border around the ice. Hanzo places a flat palm on it, and—

It stirs to life, levitates (throwing Hanzo backwards once again in the process) and retains its gleaming, golden border as it hovers in the air, perfectly still. Hanzo eyes a nearby chunk of ice, about the size of his first. With curious abandon, Hanzo chucks the ice chunk into the golden fountain—it too flies up and through the air, hovering still. 

Hanzo takes a long, contemplative breath before chucking a few more stones into the fountain with the same result. One of the larger pieces attaches itself to the huge one the fountain landed on—retaining the golden tinsel about what used to be their edges, looking like _kintsugi_ piece, but almost seamlessly attached. 

Hanzo smiles, tired and heavy, and begins rebuilding. 

***

An Overwatch-marked dropship hovers neatly over the concrete slab of a helipad Torbjörn recently reconstructed. The blue hum of the dropship’s hoverpad rings in Jesse’s ears like a tuning fork. He sits, one eye closed and one eye half-open, backwards on a folding chair with his chin in his hand. A cigarillo dangles from his lips, and the smoke from it spills through the hole in his hat. 

“McCree, you look like…” Murray trails off. Her arm rests in a sling, and she has a bizarre device attached to the back of her shoulder, some whirring medical burden—she winces every time she moves to bear its weight. She continues speaking but keeps her big eyes on the hovercraft as it touches down and begins to open. “Ass. You kinda look like ass. Did you drink again?” She is inquisitive, maybe concerned? Her eyes are swimmy with pain meds. 

“No,” pouts the gunslinger. “There’s just a _hole_ in my _soul_.” He spits a look of venom with half-squinted eyes at Vandergild just behind him, who coughs awkwardly and shuffles backwards. At least he’s afraid. 

“Okay, I got _shot_.” Murray raises an eyebrow at her superior. 

“I been shot loads of times. You ain’t special,” grumbles Jesse.

Anundhatta puts up a palm. “Mr. McCree, I must point out at this juncture that that remark—”

“Cut yer gob or I’ll stick yer finger in a ‘lectrical socket,” murmurs Jesse.

The omnic relents. 

The door is open now, and along with a few personnel, several pallets of crates, and a throng of what appear to be scientists, a jetlagged gorilla and a figure shaded by her umbrella stumble out into the dirt. 

“Oh hey—” Jesse begins, but is cut off by a firm hand clamping down on his shoulder. 

Christen, who had been standing right behind Murray, speaks through gritted teeth and thin, white lips: “Is. That. Angela. Ziegler.” 

“Yeah. Hey!” Jesse stands, waving his arms above his head. “Angela!” 

The shaded figure turns to look from behind her sunglasses. 

Christen’s other hand clamps down on Jesse’s other arm. “Ohmygodstop your _shit_. I am not ready to meet Angela Ziegler. What the fuck. I can’t. I didn’t dress, I…” the blossoming medic trails off into a series of nonsensical crows and caws. He stumbles backwards. Carlson silently takes him by the shoulder and leads him back toward the defensive array. 

“The fuck was that?” says Flores. 

“He idolizes her,” says Jesse. “I didn’t tell ‘im she was coming.” A grin. 

“You’re a dick,” says Flores. 

“Hey, guys,” says Winston, who pads up towards and tiredly and gazes into the team’s collective stare. 

“Sir,” everyone says with a bow. 

Jesse merely tips his hat. “Howdy.” 

Winston salutes. “Yeah.” The gorilla stares with dead eyes at McCree. “I gotta nap. Can we gather somewhere habitable in a few hours. Thanks.” He shuffles past the gunslinger and the collected crowd clumsily, nodding and waving along the way. “It’s hotter here than Ecopoint Honolulu,” he mumbles. 

“Volcano,” grumbles McCree when Murray looks at him quizzically. There are painkillers happening here. 

“Hellooo,” says Angela in a sing-song voice as she sweeps up toward the team. “I am Angela Ziegler, Overwatch’s chief surgeon. I am here to look at a certain defensive coordinator. Is he around?” 

“No, Ang, he left,” mutters Jesse. 

Angela smiles at him. There is a contemplative sadness in her eyes. Beyond sympathy. She knows his pain. “He rubs off on you,” she says, then strides past. Anundhatta moves to follow her wordlessly. 

Jesse cranes his neck, sighs, and calls, “one of our guys got a message from Ana… looks like a buncha mumbo-jumbo to me, though.” 

Jesse lets the end of his cigarillo burn into it touches his metal fingertips, staring at the emptiness of the open dropship.

***

Sounds. There are so many of them, and they are so clear in his ears. Sharp, prodding, almost stabbing at his eardrums, a cacophony of noise interrupts what felt like the longest dream. It fades in blurs and quick seconds of time until it’s nothing but an outline of a child’s drawing, and nothing more. 

Sounds, but nothing but black. Sight unseen, body unfelt, he gradually remembers who he is. One by one, the molecules in his being can be gathered, felt, construed and constructed into a whole being. He feels the extent of his toes, the inner workings of his aging skeleton, and a sudden conscious bleariness. It feels like hours before he is able to comprehend the ligaments and joints that allow for motion, and curl one finger up. 

One of the sounds fluxes into a jolting shout that prickles the rapidly growing physicality of Hanzo’s body. The scream mixes with others, and there is a terrible scurrying that rocks Hanzo’s psyche back and forth like a child with a goldfish. He tries to remember what it’s like to wince, and to his all but utter shock, he actually feels a mouth. 

He constructs a visage of his own face out of memory as the voices grow more encouraging and maybe more calm? Are they speaking English? Japanese? Korean? What’s the difference? Which ones are which? How do they sound? Slowly, he picks apart the syllables and begins to retain their meaning across multiple words. He forms sentences, albeit chunks of misheard jumble assembled with random order, but he understands sentiment and context. The map of his face is complete. He smells—sterile and cold. He feels with porous skin—sterile and cold. Wholly unpleasant. This is what discomfort feels like. Taste—sterile, cold. All of this is uncomfortable. Why did he come back to _this?_

Eyes. There are eyes. He tries to synthesize eyelids, and open them. And, after a few tries, he gets it right. 

It’s blinding at first. Random, bleary shapes move in and out of focus, but he actually hears the vocal cords in his voice fire at pitches that make sense. Slowly the sunlight leaking in from the rafters defines itself, fades into other colors—the blue of the wall, the white of the curtains, the black shelving across from him. The shine from the linoleum. 

And there are faces. Other faces. Other people. And Hanzo knows who they are. He puts them in place, in history, in his own story. His past. His life. Life that he’s living again. That he’s come back to. His breath becomes shallow, and it feels as if there is an ocean behind his eyes. 

On his immediate right is Genji. The visor sits in his lap, lights off, polished and proper. His face, belted with scars, stares quietly into his. Hanzo’s heart seizes, his breath shortens, and he curls his weak fists into balls. 

“ _Relax. Can you understand me?_?” says Genji in Japanese. 

“ _Of course I can understand you._ ” Hanzo answers. 

The other person, on the other side. Jesse. The gunslinger breathes out, a gust, a whoosh, and his face flushes, and he buries it in his hands, hiding the smile. 

That won’t do. “No,” Hanzo says, almost pleadingly, and reaches over to pry Jesse’s fingers away from his face. When he finally peels his warm fingers back, that wolfish grin of a profile is covered in tears. 

“McCree, you’re going to stress him out.” 

“I want a drink,” says Hanzo. And as soon as he says it, he knows it to be so true and so impossible at the same time. The fact of his history fits in like a puzzle piece, and he sighs, defeated. 

“You can have water.” Genji puts a cup on his bedside tray. 

“What happened.” Hanzo shifts uncomfortably. He touches his body—so much thinner and weaker. How much time did he spend in bed? 

Jesse instantly looks uncomfortable. Hanzo bores into his face, straight as an arrow. Answers. 

“You never were a morning person,” grumbles Genji. 

Hanzo looks over at him, opens his mouth to reply, and instantly feels something strange. Part of his face is cold. He reaches up and touches his cheek. Beard is longer, unkempt, completely unpresentable, but still there. Not numb, just… colder? He reaches up, higher, until Jesse’s prosthetic grips his forearm gently. 

“Slow down,” says his lover, low and warm—trembling. 

He ignores the warning, sliding out of Jesse’s grasp and reaching up to touch his hair—and feels nothing. He prods at his scalp, and feels two sensations: the prickle of stubble and a sharp pinpoint of agony through his entire skull. He winces, and immediately feels the other side, breathing out to feel a thin stream of coarse, uncared-for locks over more stubble.

“I said _woah_ there, darlin’,” murmurs Jesse. “I uh, had ‘em shave it on both sides cuz I knew you wouldn’t like it uneven. You still got the top, though!” 

Genji sighs. “Try to remember.” 

Jesse looks over at Genji with an impassioned twitch of fury on his face. 

Genji simmers through the glare. “I know exactly what he feels right now, and I know what is best.” 

There’s a haze. Hanzo tries to think back—he gets as far as Ojo Caliente and blacks out. He remembers Jack and Ana, but their faces are faded and distant—like when he only knew them via photographs. Nothing about his shaved head. Nothing about the pain… something cold? They were after Widowmaker— 

Did she win? Did she shoot him? Hanzo feels his mouth open. He must have a look of abject horror on his face, because Jesse suddenly looks desperate. He lost? 

“I lost?” 

Genji looks down at his hands. 

“We _won_.” Jesse produces a tablet from his pocket. “When you’re ready. You want some space?” 

Hanzo suddenly feels the urge to retch. He motions for the trash can, which Jesse provides before standing. The sniper, feeling the muscles in his abdomen stretch for the first time in ages, wheezes nothingness into the plastic liner. Spittle hits the trash bag with a discordant _tish_ , ringing in his ears as if it were louder than a gunshot. Sensing Jesse moving toward the door, he snatches the gunslinger’s wrist. He glowers up at Jesse, meeting his smoldering eyes with a pathetic grimace. He lets go of the cold metal prosthetic, but Jesse its back down.

“Angela used some new technique to repair the damage done to your brain,” Genji says, a little more chipper this time. “Your head feels nice, I’m sure.” 

“This is worse than alcohol rehabilitation,” mutters Hanzo, dragging dry fingers across his flaky forehead. His eyes zero in on the tablet, and he taps it on. The dossier springs to life, and the details come rushing back—the vial, the horrific sound of the shutter ripping open. Widow’s last bite. Something cascades through the decaying numb—wretched uselessness. Hanzo bites his lip. The text becomes hard to read very quickly, but not before he reads Vandergild’s account of the operation. “You used my personnel as dummies.” 

Jesse sighs. “It wasn’t ideal, darlin’. But it worked.” 

“Amélie…” Hanzo looks down at his hands again. 

Genji stands, and moves toward the window. “Amélie Lacroix died many years ago. You saw it on video, brother.” 

“No,” Hanzo says. “I saw her.” 

The yellow eyes. That crystalline moment on the floor during Talon’s assault on the Watchpoint. That fraction of time on the hood of the supply truck. The broken-ness behind her eyes, the ghost of something clawing at her insides. The reason she’s been seen at Gérard’s fake grave. The reason she came to Grand Mesa in the first place. Talon could bury it with toxins and torture all they wanted, but it was still there, and Hanzo could smell it from miles away.

Guilt. 

Hanzo must be reflecting some portion of this broken-eyed stare, as Genji won’t look him in the eyes. A mechanical _click_ punctures the silence as his brother puts his visor back on: “you need to rest.” 

Hanzo scoffs. “The last thing I wish to be is unconscious. Help me stand,” Hanzo beckons to Jesse, who frowns. Hanzo tilts his head, scanning his fiancée, a deep appreciation for the new prosthetic settling in—

His eyes fly to his own hand, where the ring is blazing in the little streak of light left from the window; a sigh of relief. He takes another sip of the water as Anundhatta suddenly strolls in, flanked on both sides by Christen and a certain smug, Swiss doctor. She eyes him up and down, coughing expectantly. 

“Dr. Zeigler,” says Hanzo, as cordially as he can muster. 

“Captain Shimada,” she says bouncily, putting her hands on her hips. “I assume you’re trying to do too much with yourself already?” 

“And I assume you expect me to lay in bed for a week,” says Hanzo. 

The doctor sighs as Christen moves to Hanzo’s side. 

“Boss… I uh…” 

Hanzo coughs. “Bring me my cane.” 

Christen shrugs. “Rank doesn’t apply when I’m your doctor.”

Angela grips Hanzo’s calves suddenly, and a tingling sensation spreads throughout his body, beginning from the contact zone. He sucks in a breath. 

“Your muscles haven’t atrophied, but they’re weaker. You will need a while before you stand.” She looses her grip, and the pins-and-needles wither into the vague numbness from before. 

“I shall fetch a wheelchair,” murmurs Anundhatta. 

Angela begins to protest, but Christen interrupts—something crosses his face as he does so. With a peal of amusement, Hanzo realizes it’s a blush. 

“If we don’t get w-wheelchair, he’ll just try to walk,” he stumbles, thick with accent. 

Jesse grins. “That ‘bot sure learns quick.” 

Hanzo folds his arms and glowers at the two of them before eyeing Genji, still standing in the corner by the window. Even under the visor, the elder brother can tell where Genji’s eyes have fallen. He smirks. 

“1107B, Main Street. Top floor cafeteria,” says Hanzo. 

Jesse looks from Hanzo to Genji to Angela, and then rumbles a lighthearted laugh under his breath. 

Angela bristles. “Huh?” 

“I am told they produce quite the delicacy of a reuben sandwich,” says Hanzo. 

She has shifted her weight and folded her arms, and is staring Hanzo down quizzically. 

“Darlin’, are you…” 

Genji begins to leave the room. 

“I was only ever able to smell one,” says the archer. 

Angela looks at Genji with some distance in her eyes as the cyborg turns the handle. 

Jesse’s small chuckle grows a little louder. Around it, he chokes, “are you actually suggestin’—”

“We will all go. When I am up to the trip.” 

Genji slams the door behind him, and Angela’s face has blanched slightly. Around the edges, the blush begins to fill in. 

“Holy fuck, I think yer brain’s loose, honey. You _really_ just suggested a double date.” 

Hanzo feels heat rushing to his face, and he lifts a weak hand to wave it dismissively. “Consider it the first of many thanks for saving my family twice around.”

Mercy claps. “O-oh, yes. Ah, my apologies, Agent Shimada. I sort of… experimented on you a tad.” 

Jesse scoffs. “What else is new.” 

“I had enough assistance to assure success this time around,” Angela smiles at Christen, who breaks out enough to nearly faint. “And, in reality, it was a variant of the same procedure done with… a certain Overwatch veteran. A—say, bird—reached out to me and gave me the information, via our up-and-comer here.” She gestures at Christen, who seems incapable of making eye contact.

The young medic shrugs. “It was nothing.” He and Jesse share a knowing look. 

“I heard you,” says Hanzo. “It was a long dream… but I heard you.” 

“Yes, the biotic procedure I used on you relies on your body’s natural processes, excelled by your strict attention to your health and… well, it sounds weird to say….” 

Anundhatta strolls back into the room, resting a wheelchair next to the bed. They clasp their hands together. “It is not strange at all, Dr. Zeigler. The procedure only provided the materials. Your own mind, and your will to live, did the rest.” 

_You don’t get an easy out,_ says a whisper, somewhere in the back of his mind. But Jesse is there, across from him, and he is breathing, and there is a life to be lived. Voices from the past are best disregarded. 

***

Sixty days pass before Hanzo feels able to move about freely. The aspen cane once again provides Hanzo a necessary comfort and grace in the interim, and he is already adept at using it. He regularly tours the construction zones, reveling in the progress that has already been made. His team welcomed him in the waiting hall of the medbay with the warmest of applauses, and Jesse again teared up during the reunion. Torbjörn, to Hanzo’s utter shock and awe, began to laugh hysterically once he and Hanzo met eyes. The Swede coughed, “ya made it. Ya made it,” repetitively between guffaws, prompting an alien-like warmth to protrude inside his stomach. Vandergild made Swedish meatballs in celebration of both Hanzo’s consciousness and Torbjörn’s completion of the robotics lab repair. The chief engineer and Winston will oversee the beginning of new research dedicated to nano-webbing and its utter insanity. 

There is a lightness about the Watchpoint. In fall, Grand Mesa begins to run gold-orange at the edges, brightening the middle and yellowing all but the pine surrounding the compound. Heat, while still ever-present, is calmer and duller instead of bearing and heavy. The sun seems brighter on the reflection of the windows, and even at night the breeze doesn’t make the hairs on Hanzo neck stand on end. One night he sat in his wheelchair and shared a cigarette with Flores, looking at the courtyard in which he’d first seen the nano-webbing imitate Gérard. The lighting is different, mostly because of the remodel, but something about the way the undertones have shifted—the spirit of the new Overwatch has reclaimed this place from the old’s dark legacy. 

Torbjörn has lost Chelsea—the grim debriefing of the subject led to the general consensus that she likely died from the nano-webbing’s poison. That whispering voice Hanzo had heard, the sick malformation of Genji’s childhood canter, said something to him, and he almost let it in. But Jesse had clamped his hand on his lover’s shoulder, breathing clove-scented, harsh cigarillo smoke out into the moonlight, and for once the sniper refused to take the burden. 

Hanzo and Murray attend rehabilitation with Anundhatta and Mercy. Unfortunately, after only five days, Overwatch’s head doctor leaves with Genji once more for Gibraltar, positioning a raincheck on the double date—which Hanzo has come to seriously regret anyway, as Jesse endlessly breathed taunts into his ear before falling asleep. The goodbye was bittersweet, but as he saw his brother step onto the hovercraft just behind Angela, their hands touched. He could tell his brother was smiling behind his visor. 

Watchpoint: Grand Mesa had already been passed by the UN as a site to research the nano-webbing defensively, but was also already bogged down with red tape and scientists from the UN itself, who seemed more dedicated to controlling the information flow than actually researching the material. Winston took his leave a week after Mercy and Genji, taking time to carefully warn them from spilling too much around UN staff, as Jack and Ana were still at large. Their presences and contributions to the success of the campaign against Talon in the area were known to the Overwatch team (and the memories of them slowly came back to Hanzo), but for official accounts, they were never there. 

One morning Hanzo wakes Jesse and the two shower together before joining Torbjörn in the courtyard between the medbay and the residency, prompted by an urgent text message. 

“Morning,” says Torbjörn over a steaming cup of what looks like sludge. 

“Howdy,” says Jesse. 

Hanzo says nothing, noticing that the morning has, for perhaps the first time since he got to the Watchpoint, brought with it an almost bitter cold. He looks down the alleyway leading to the defensive array and sees Gilbert carrying a large stack of boxes. He looks down at his phone, and sees the date, gulping down a rush of melancholy. The repairs are nearly complete, and the facility is nearly fully functional. A non-central squad of security agents have been dispatched to replace Hanzo’s team. 

“Y’know, I got my ordainment in the Old Country a few decades back,” says the engineer suddenly. 

Jesse begins to beam. 

Hanzo, immediately alarmed, shakes his head. “You have lured us—” 

“Don’t worry, ye two can be engaged to the outside world for all eternity fer what I care.” 

“What business is it of yours, anyway,” sneers Hanzo, turning up his lower lip almost comically. 

Jesse squeezes his hand. “He needs this,” he says in a low voice. 

Torbjörn turns around to face the couple with a small, thinly-paged book in his hand… 

“Wait, now? What?” Hanzo takes a few steps back, feeling his heart in his throat. 

“I know yer stye. We’re keepin’ this simple and private.” 

“ _Here_?” stumbles Hanzo, but as soon as he says it, he knows. Where else? Where they nearly gave their lives? Where Hanzo’s will and his love was ultimately tested? Where Jesse broke through everything? The ties are almost inlaid with the new marble flooring. The formative relations are scratched on the surface, etched like earthen memories into the foundation below. 

Torbjörn eyes McCree, nearly mischief in his wetted eyes. “Do ye?” 

Jesse swells with pride, his chest out and back straight, turns to Hanzo, holds his hands in his. The wind whips his face, his hair truly a mop and still wet from the shower. “I do.”

Hanzo, bewilderment obvious on his face and also penetrating deep behind it, utters a pathetic, “buh?” 

Torbjörn gives Hanzo the same look. “Do ye?” 

Hanzo looks into Jesse’s eyes. A thousand times over, the answer is obvious. It’s never been anything else, or any _one_ else. The memories of the golden fountain in his coma, piecing the glacier back together piece by piece by piece over what only could be perceived as decades, and the only motivation that pushed him through it. Through the burning hot of the sand and the burning cold of the ice. His voice. His laugh. His smile. And the desperate yearning to see it again. The vow to give up all the hangups and the guilt to do anything for this man, _anything_ , even get stupidly unofficially married in the courtyard of an unmarked military base in the middle of the desert mountains. 

“I do.” 

***

As quickly as the Watchpoint recovered, the reminder that almost everyone’s installation here was temporary settled in. It isn’t until the hovercraft is in front of him, however, that Hanzo accepts that his team is splitting up. 

Vandergild chokes awkwardly on the rings of dust fluttered up by the hovercraft’s arrival. The shining Overwatch logo bounces the sun right into his eyes, so he shifts his position and coughs once more. “It was…. It is an honor to know you, boss.” He shakes Hanzo’s hand, and the two men nod vaguely at each other—it feels too distant to be the final goodbye. 

Murray, having regained the use of both her arms, throws her arms around his neck in a solemn embrace before she steps on the carrier as well. “Thank you… and Hardy would’ve said the same thing.” Hanzo looks at the river behind the look in her eyes, coursing the same way it rages in his. Cutting, sharp, and cold—with focus, she will be an incredible sniper. He cups her newly healed shoulder with pride just before she pulls away. 

Flores flicks his cigarette butt into a nearby trashcan while Gilbert nods as he brusquely strides onto the craft without a word. 

“Um…” 

“You do not have to say anything.” Hanzo jerks his head toward Vandergild. “I know you are unskilled at speaking your mind.” 

Flores gawks. “Both of you are _such_ assholes.” 

Hanzo folds his arms and raises an eyebrow. 

“Yeah, you and your fiancée are a match made in heaven. Anyway, thanks, boss.” The demolitions expert shoves his fists into his pockets and clumsily gaits his way onto the hovercraft. Hanzo has a startling memory of when the two first met—the now nimble-fingered specialist accidentally put his cigarette out on Hanzo’s _gi_. A simper creaks up on the edges of Hanzo’s mouth. 

Carlson, Christen, and Anundhatta all approach at once, the sunlight reflecting off of Carlson’s ridiculously large sunglasses. 

Christen shuffles his feet, but Hanzo lays a gentle slap on the side of his cheek. “Thank you.” He nods, repeating the words to Anundhatta, who holds up both of their hands. 

“It is paramount we meet again, Captain Shimada. I have much to learn from your recovery process.” The omnic mechanically clicks away. 

Christen swallows loudly. “It’s been an honor.” 

“Likewise.” 

“Sir,” says Carlson. “Permission to do a mantis hug.” 

“I do not know what that is.” 

Carlson raises both of his hands, palms flat, and robotically shoves them over Hanzo’s shoulders, leaning down into an awkward embrace. 

“And I did not grant permission.” Hanzo wriggles out from under his grasp, nonplussed, but inexplicably lightened that the stealth operative is comfortable enough to act completely out of line. Perhaps Jesse was right: something may have changed. 

Jesse approaches as the hovercraft hums to life, scattering clippings of weeds and dust into the fall atmosphere. It begins to rise, but Murray’s tiny form is suddenly hanging out one of the windows in the rear cabin, dangling her arms below her. 

“Christen says give us a show! Last part of rehab!” She’s clearly grinning, though the hoverpad is already dangerously high. She weaves her arms loosely in a flowing motion, pantomiming the spirit dragons. 

“They are not a magic trick!” Hanzo cups his hands around his mouth and shouts upward. 

Jesse playfully bumps into him. “Don’t act like you’re not dyin’ to try it.” 

Hanzo glowers over at his fiancée, who, now that he’s actually looked, is holding Storm Bow and a single arrow. 

The archer sighs, and slips comfortably into form. It’s almost mechanical, the muscle memory. Natural, like swimming in a river. As if he’d never put it down. And nothing weighs down his shoulders, either, save for a month or so of disuse. He points the arrow upwards as the hovercraft gains altitude, smirking as the color fades from his surroundings and the sounds become an ephemeral gasp in his eardrums. They are here. 

He lets go, and the arrow springs to life, blue whips of energy sliding off of it as the dragons materialize—but to Hanzo’s slackjawed shock, they are not just blue. 

Interlaced, as if hewn back together like _kintsugi_ , are shallow veins of gold, gossamer strips of blinding yellow like ribbons spidering alone their electric blue bodies as they roar up into the horizon. 

The tears well up in his eyes, lips trembling, as Jesse embraces him. Hanzo watches the dropship until he can’t see it anymore. Bittersweet, again, but also so incredibly sustaining. His flock has left, far from unscathed, but he has the dragons, and he has Genji, and he has Jesse. 

And that is more than enough.

**Author's Note:**

> The one thing I can’t write is how appreciative I am for your readership.
> 
> This fic was not beta'd with no proofreading, and took over a year to complete. So. That's me. 
> 
> Shout out to my good friend Cory, who encouraged me to continue at my own pace until it was complete. 
> 
> I am working on another entry in the same universe, tangential but sequential (name of my sex tape) but I'm not going to do the same thing I did to people with this fic and so I'll be releasing that one on a schedule once I've actually /finished the entire work/


End file.
